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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28153404">Teammates Don't Kiss</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daikon1/pseuds/Daikon'>Daikon (Daikon1)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Identity Reveal, Mutual Pining, Sailor Moon Classic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:20:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28153404</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daikon1/pseuds/Daikon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Usagi and Mamoru narrowly miss meeting outside OSA-P, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask decide to keep things strictly platonic for the sake of the mission. What could go wrong? </p><p>A giftfic written for RogueAlly / AllyUnabridged for the 2020 Sailor Moon Holiday Gift Exchange!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>2020 Sailor Moon Holiday Gift Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Shocking Meeting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllyUnabridged/gifts">AllyUnabridged</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is a gift for RogueAlly/AllyUnabridged (henceforth referred to as 'Rogue'), who I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to write for in the 2020 Sailor Moon Holiday Gift Exchange on Tumblr!</p><p>I kind of mashed up two of her requests to bring you a First Season Canon Divergent AU with interest at first sight but Usagi and Mamoru decide to be "just friends" after an early reveal of their Moon/Mask identities. Also, because Rogue prefers longfic, this will be a multichapter!</p><p>Enormous thanks as always to FloraOne for doing an amazing job betaing and providing lots of general encouragement. If you've never written for an exchange before, let me tell you, it's very intimidating to try to consciously write to someone else's tastes (especially a friend's!), so it was nice to have someone to hold my hand and reassure me about my writing!</p><p>Anyway, I'm excited to share this with you and I hope you all enjoy – especially you, Rogue!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic is a gift for RogueAlly/AllyUnabridged (henceforth referred to as 'Rogue'), who I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to write for in the 2020 Sailor Moon Holiday Gift Exchange on Tumblr!</p><p>I kind of mashed up two of her requests to bring you a First Season Canon Divergent AU with interest at first sight but Usagi and Mamoru decide to be "just friends" after an early reveal of their Moon/Mask identities. Also, because Rogue prefers longfic, this will be a multichapter!</p><p>Enormous thanks as always to FloraOne for doing an amazing job betaing and providing lots of general encouragement. If you've never written for an exchange before, let me tell you, it's very intimidating to try to consciously write to someone else's tastes (especially a friend's!), so it was nice to have someone to hold my hand and reassure me about my writing!</p><p>Anyway, I'm excited to share this with you and I hope you all enjoy – especially you, Rogue!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"From the moment I saw you outside OSA-P, I wanted desperately to know you, but I was running late and there wasn't time to meet."</p><p>Sailor Moon's eyes went big as she recognized the words that she'd penned only the day before, written to her hopeless missed connection from almost a month ago.</p><p>"They're reading my letter!" she whispered to herself, her lips curling up even as she slid along the cabinets of the sound studio, careful to stay low and out of view.</p><p>Yes, she rationally knew that this was all a front for some evil, energy-stealing operation, but the fact that Midnight Zero had picked <em>her</em> letter out of all the ones they'd received made her a little giddy. Plus, this meant that they wouldn't be sending an evil broach to anyone else tomorrow, so this was a total win-win, right?</p><p>She was going to call it a win.</p><p>"I want to see you again. I want to know if you noticed me, too. I hope that you want to meet me. Yours always."</p><p>Her cheeks burned pink hearing the baldness of her confession out loud. She couldn't decide if she hoped Green Jacket was the kind of person who listened to this sap or not – after all, she had no better ideas for finding the guy, but did she really want to meet him with him already knowing how intensely she felt for him?</p><p>She blew out a breath of air – plenty of time to worry about <em>that</em> later – before reaching up to grab a microphone, pulling it down to her level and jamming a button on the switchboard with a gloved finger.</p><p>"Hello, I am sorry to interrupt this broadcast!" she said into the mic in her most grown-up voice. "We have recently received notice that the broaches this program is giving away actually contain harmful chemicals and are being recalled by the manufacturer. If you receive one, please throw it away without opening it. Thank you and please enjoy the rest of your evening!"</p><p>She reached up to unjam the switchboard and found herself instead looking up through the transparent glass casing of the sound booth into the crimson eyes of an elegant and rather pissed-off looking woman in a poison-green suit jacket.</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p>"Crazy news about those broaches, huh?" She forced a laugh, and then shrieked as the woman smashed through the window with a powerful strike, sending sharp shards splintering in every direction. Sailor Moon's block wasn't fast enough, and flying glass shredded into the skin of her arms and face, leaving jagged lacerations in their wake.</p><p>When she lowered her arms, there was a monster with a misshapen mouth and a star-splotch on her forehead standing before her, arms braced in preparation to attack.</p><p>Sailor Moon rose to a stand, red blood dripping onto the white of her fuku. A blond man, the one who had just been reading letters on the program, winked from his place in the sound booth to stand next to the woman-turned-monster.</p><p>"So, Sailor Moon," he said in a low, mocking tone. "I should have known you'd come poking around here."</p><p>Sailor Moon, outnumbered and injured, did the most sensible thing she could think of – she hightailed it.</p><p>Clutching the railing as she ran up the studio stairs, puffing out little breaths of air and promising herself that <em>this week</em> she was gonna <em>actually make it to the gym</em>, <em>dammit</em>, Sailor Moon looked back to make sure she wasn't being followed before kicking open the roof access door.</p><p>
  <em>It couldn't be that hard to scaffold down a building, right? I mean, she was a superhero for crying out loud.</em>
</p><p>As she leaned over the side of FM.10, trying to gauge how intense her hospitalization would likely be if she fell, the monster burst through the station's skylight and tore into the sky, making Sailor Moon shriek and pinwheel her blood-spattered arms to keep herself from teetering off the edge.</p><p>Nearly hyperventilating, Sailor Moon managed to find her balance on wobbly knees and stared in horror at the advancing monster. <em>What was she supposed to do?!</em></p><p>As the youma lunged, sharp nails poised to rip her to pieces, Sailor Moon wailed – until a red rose pierced the concrete of the station's roof between them.</p><p>Her eyes went big and her head swiveled to a neighboring rooftop. The dashing man in eveningwear was a welcome sight, his cape billowing in the breeze as he watched the confrontation impassively. <em>Tuxedo Mask</em>.</p><p>Luna said she didn't remember this particular masked man from their past life, but so far he'd shown up every time Sailor Moon needed him, and that was good enough for her.</p><p>"Calm down, Sailor Moon, you have the skills to fight this. Use your tiara."</p><p>Sailor Moon blew out a breath as the youma regrouped, preparing to rush again. His reminder brought reassurance with it, and as she pulled the golden band from her forehead she felt as surge of confidence.</p><p>Spinning the tiara in her fingers, she charged her attack. She then let it fly with all her might. The sparkling weapon flew true, bisecting the enemy who screamed and faded to nothing but dust.</p><p>Looking to the other roof with a shaky but triumphant grin, Sailor Moon missed the blond man advancing on her. He had emerged from the roof access while she'd been dispatching his minion, and now charged a ball of sickly malevolent energy in his hand.</p><p>But he didn't escape Tuxedo Mask's notice – with an impressive leap, the masked man sprung from his roof, sweeping Sailor Moon into his arms and out of harm's way with another forceful jump. The ball of black force shot past them, splitting against the concrete and harmlessly dissolving into nothing.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask landed half a block away, atop the roof of another building – just near enough that they could still hear the blond man's curses trailing ineffectually after them.</p><p>Sailor Moon's boots settled on firm concrete, but then she stumbled as soon as Tuxedo Mask tried to release his hold on her. Her body trembled, and he smoothed a hand over her cheek, his gloved hand coming away stained with red.</p><p>"You're hurt," he said, and she shrugged.</p><p>"It happens," was her reply, and his mouth pulled into a taut frown.</p><p>"You look like you're going to go into shock."</p><p>"I've been in shock since I found out I was Sailor Moon, actually," she replied, and his frown lessened as he suppressed a smile at her cheek.</p><p>"Not that kind," he said, keeping his voice gentle. "Medical shock. Some of these cuts are bad, Sailor Moon. You might need stitches."</p><p>She shook her head, but her eyes were going woozy. "I can't go to a hospital, too many questions."</p><p>Both his jaw and one fist clenched. "...I can help you."</p><p>"What?" she said, attempting to step away from him and stumbling again. His hand on her lower back tightened, providing support.</p><p>"I'm a doctor. Well, a resident, but either way. I can help you. C'mon, you can barely stand."</p><p>Luna would be absolutely furious, but the strange semi-floaty feeling seeping into her limbs was making it difficult to worry about what Luna would say. Looking up to meet deep blue eyes behind a Domino mask, Sailor Moon nodded.</p>
<hr/><p>Tuxedo Mask landed on a balcony in the Azabujuban district, looking around a bit furtively. He kept one hand supporting Sailor Moon as he slid the sliding glass panel open, then guided her inside and deposited her on the cream-colored couch. She'd become a little loopy in the few minutes of their journey, and her skin had taken on the slightest grey tinge, but she allowed him to steer her without protest.</p><p>He pulled the comforter from his bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, pausing only to pop the kettle on before disappearing into the bathroom to gather his first aid supplies.</p><p>Medical kit in hand, he emerged a minute later and stepped into the kitchenette to pour Sailor Moon a cup of hot tea. Taking a seat next to her on the couch, he arranged her trembling fingers around the warm cup before pressing a hand to her forehead.</p><p>She still felt clammy to the touch, but less so than she had.</p><p>"Okay," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Sailor Moon, I'm gonna take the blanket off of you now and start looking at your cuts. Is that okay?"</p><p>She nodded, and he carefully unwrapped her. His blanket would need to be washed, splotched now with her blood, but he would worry about that later. She was still bleeding quite a bit, her fuku and his suit both tinged red.</p><p>"Sailor Moon?" he said, and her unfocused eyes snapped to attention again at the sound of her name.</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"Drink your tea," he said with a shake of his head. He climbed off the couch and padded to his fridge, relieved that the combination of his new life as a medical resident and moonlighting as Tuxedo Mask had forced him to start buying pre-prepared food or else risk forgetting to eat entirely and collapsing on the job. He couldn't both cook and take care of her right now.</p><p>He exhaled with relief as he returned to find her taking a long sip of her tea, the skin of her face starting to return to its normal peach shade under the scarlet stains of her blood.</p><p>He thrust the opened bento of finger-friendly foods – onigiri and kamaboko and sushi – into her lap with a curt "Eat."</p><p>She blinked, then looked down at her blood-sticky gloves with confusion.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask's exhale was long and slow. "You already know where I live," he said, words carefully measured. "So maybe you'll trust me to see who you really are? I can take better care of you that way."</p><p>She looked up at him, a semblance of alertness returning to her eyes. "If you get to know who I am, you have to show me who you are," she said, her voice slower than normal, as if thinking through his proposal required substantial effort, and he nodded.</p><p>"Fair's fair," he said, dropping his transformation.</p><p>The transition was near instantaneous, the Keio sweatshirt flickering back into reality as the tuxedo vanished, but it was long enough for her dazed eyes to grow wide and her gaze to unmistakably sharpen. She gasped, clapping her dirty glove over her mouth. "Oh my god! You're Green Jacket!"</p><p>Mamoru blinked at her. "Excuse me?"</p><p>"You're, you're…" she rotated her hand next to her ear, as though she was having trouble thinking of the words, before clicking her fingers and pointing at him. "You're that cute guy from outside OSA-P!"</p><p>His mouth quirked up despite himself. "Thank you, I think?" he said, opening his first aid kit and snapping on a pair of sterile gloves. "Now, if you could return the favor, please?"</p><p>She nodded, eyebrows furrowing, before she pressed a hand to her chest and her glamour melted away to reveal the girl from outside OSA-P, the one he'd been unable to stop thinking about, the woman who had nearly supplanted the princess of his dreams over the course of the last month.</p><p>Years of emotional suppression allowed him to keep his face still, or else his eyes might have grown as big as hers.</p><p>"You're…" His mouth went dry, and he shook his head as he picked up a set of forceps, suddenly glad to have something to do with his hands. "...The buns. I probably should have been able to make that connection on my own."</p><p>Her face flushed under the blood, much to his relief. Blushing was good, blushing meant her circulation was returning to normal. Now he needed to keep her alert and talking – he just wished they had a better topic.</p><p>"What's wrong with my buns?!" she asked, popping a piece of sushi into her mouth with a frown.</p><p>He paused, steadying his emotions as he picked up a cotton ball with the forceps and doused it in antiseptic. His heart still pounded overtime from the revelation, but at least his hands didn't shake.</p><p>"Nothing, Odango Atama. They're just distinctive." <em>And adorable.</em></p><p>He'd been oddly relieved, in the weeks that had followed his entire world quaking beneath him just from seeing her run past him outside the jewelry store, that he hadn't been able to find her again. If he couldn't find her, after all, nothing would ruin the fantasy of what she might have meant to him, in another life where he was… well, a different man, with different obligations.</p><p>And now, not only had he found her again, but she turned out to be Sailor-freaking-Moon, because the universe had no empathy for Chiba Mamoru.</p><p>She arched an eyebrow at him as he began to dab antiseptic on her cheek. "If there's nothing wrong with them, why call me 'Odango Atama?'"</p><p>His gaze flicked from where he tended her wounds to meet her eyes. <em>Because 'pretty girl who ran past me once outside a jewelry store' doesn't have the same ring to it.</em></p><p>"You called me 'Green Jacket,'" he said instead, returning his attention to the task of patching her up. He managed to school the quaver out of his voice as he asked: "Is there something you would prefer I call you instead?"</p><p>Little spots of pink appeared on her cheekbones, the blood that had been caking them mostly removed. "Usagi," she said, then yelped as he moved to the worst of her cuts, one of the ones that jagged across her upper arm.</p><p>"Shh, I know. I'm sorry," he said, in his best soothing-doctor voice, the one he usually reserved exclusively for frightened pediatric cancer patients.</p><p>She released a small hiss, then picked up the entire bento in her free hand so she could cross her legs at the shins. She tried to suck on her ungashed cheek but noticeably winced when the act pulled in her wounded cheek as well. Scrunching one eye shut against her discomfort, she centered her attention to him like a life raft. "So you're a doctor?" she asked, and he shrugged.</p><p>"Technically. I've completed medical school, but I'm not done with my professional training quite yet."</p><p>She rebalanced the bento on her thighs, plucked out an onigiri and took a large bite. "So, what, that means you just… help people? All the time?"</p><p>He snorted, gesturing at himself with the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball. "Mamoru, at your service," he said, and she laughed a wonderful deep-belly laugh that reached down to her toes and twisted Mamoru's insides into knots.</p><p>"You're kidding," she said, and he shook his head.</p><p>"Nope. I figure at least it's not 'Reiki,' so I can pretend I have some semblance of control over my life."</p><p>Her smile was a stutter, but her eyes were soft. "You didn't want to be a doctor?"</p><p>"No, I love being a doctor. I just… Sorry, it was a bad joke," he trailed off as his words faded into a mutter, training his eyes back on his first aid kit and away from the blue of hers.</p><p>His career was one of the few aspects of his life that he felt completely at peace with; even if his desire to study neurology had come from something that had been done to him, he loved the subject matter, was glad to be pursuing it. It felt like it was his.</p><p>Nighttime vigilante, chasing some misplaced mystical bauble for a mysterious princess while assisting a reluctant superhero, on the other hand, felt like it had been thrust upon him without his consent. His lifelong dreams of said mysterious princess, even more so.</p><p>The fact that the vibrant woman sitting on his couch, covered in her own blood after rescuing Tokyo from a nefarious plot, was untouchable for him because of some nonsensical obligation he hadn't asked for was a particularly hard bit of destiny to stomach.</p><p>But what else was he, but practiced at swallowing bitter pills?</p><p>He cleared his throat as he used his forceps to toss the bloodied cotton ball into his wastebasket. "So, Usagi, what about you?"</p><p>"What about me?" She shoved another piece of sushi into her mouth; the food appeared to be restoring her.</p><p>"I assume you have a day job, in addition to the superhero gig?" he asked as he leaned in close to critically evaluate the cut on her arm. It wasn't shallow, but he wasn't sure if it was deep enough to warrant stitches, either. Hell, he wasn't sure if he was <em>prepared </em>to give her stitches in his living room, even if it was currently serving as a makeshift triage center.</p><p>"Oh. Kind of? It's really not that exciting, you probably wouldn't be interested."</p><p>He made the executive decision that she'd be alright without stitches, and began using medical tape instead to delicately rejoin each wound, taking particular care to make sure the ones on her face were lined up perfectly. As he did, he pressed her gently: "Why wouldn't I be interested?"</p>
<hr/><p>He'd already felt like a hopeless crush when he'd just been the cute boy she'd run past outside the jewelry store, suave and together in a way she never would be, even in that puke-green blazer. Now? Not only was he Tuxedo-freaking-Mask, the guy who consistently saved her butt in the middle of battle, but he was also a doctor, <em>and </em>he smelled this good?</p><p>No, this was life throwing her yet another unfair curveball.</p><p>She tried to restrain herself from taking a deep lungful of his scent when he leaned in to bandage her arm, compromising with a sharp inhale instead that would hopefully be mistaken for pain.</p><p>How was she supposed to tell a guy like this that she'd barely graduated high school and now worked a series of odd part-time jobs to pay the bills while hoping to magically stumble into a career that actually suited her? Preferably something that permitted lots of snacks and naps? He'd think she was a child.</p><p>Though, she thought halfheartedly as she crammed the last of the onigiri into her mouth, he'd already seen her eat. If that hadn't killed any interest he might ever have had in her, then he would have to be her freaking soulmate or something. And <em>that</em> seemed unlikely.</p><p>Pouting slightly, she looked up at him. "I just meant I'm not... I don't save lives or do anything important, like you do." She shrugged, picking at one of the pieces of kamaboko.</p><p>"You're <em>Sailor Moon</em>," he said, like it was the most stupidly obvious thing in the world. "Of course what you do is important."</p><p>"I know, I meant… aside from that." She popped the roll into her mouth and looked down at her lap, studiously avoiding his eyes.</p><p>There was a long pause, in which he smoothed a wide bandage along her face, covering most of the skin of her cheek.</p><p>"Your tea is getting cold," he finally said, and she pulled a small grimace. "What?"</p><p>"You didn't put any honey or milk or anything in it. Who just drinks plain tea?"</p><p>He snorted. "Superheroes who are on the verge of going into shock, need to warm up quickly, and don't have time to worry about things like flavor," he rebutted, picking up the mug from where she'd left it on his coffee table. "Should I make you a fresh cup?"</p><p>She ran her hands through her pigtails, smoothing them out. "...I should probably get home, honestly," she said. "My roommate got that sleeping sickness thing from the broaches, which was how we figured out what was going on in the first place. She was awake when I left, after we chucked the broach out the window, but I should still probably check on her."</p><p>He sighed and nodded, pulling off his latex gloves and tossing them into the wastebasket as well. "Let me at least check your vitals first," he said, holding out a hand for hers.</p><p>She put her hand in his, and he carefully turned it over and pressed two fingers to the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. She tried not to shiver into the warm contact, digging her nails into her palm instead.</p><p>"Your pulse is a little fast," he said after a moment, "But it feels strong. Do you want me to walk you home? In case of a recurrence or complications?"</p><p>She shook her head, knowing full well her pulse was only fast because of his hands on her. "I'll be okay," she promised as he pulled a digital thermometer out of his kit and wiped it down with a sanitizing wipe.</p><p>"Open," he said, and she opened her mouth automatically for the thermometer.</p><p>As she sat patiently holding the little device under her tongue, she noticed that Mamoru seemed to be staring at her chest awfully intently, and her cheeks began to burn.</p><p>The thermometer beeped, and when he made no move to take it from her, she removed it herself instead. Then, she hugged her arms over her breasts. "What are you looking at?" she asked defensively.</p><p>"I was counting your respirations," he replied without a trace of embarrassment, looking up to meet her eyes. "Which are normal, ten in forty-five seconds." He reached out and took the thermometer from her hand, holding it up to read it. "And your temperature is a healthy 37C."</p><p>Usagi's face burned. She wasn't sure if she was more humiliated that now he knew she'd thought he was checking her out, or because it had turned out he actually hadn't been. Either way, she was ready to go home, climb into bed, and hide under her bunnies-and-moons comforter for the foreseeable future. <em>Let someone </em><em><strong>else</strong></em><em> fight evil for a change.</em></p><p>"Oh. Okay, then," she said, standing and brushing her hands over her denim shorts and looking up and out his floor-to-ceiling windows. "I should go, then. Um. Which way is Mita?"</p>
<hr/><p>Alone once again in his apartment, Mamoru dumped the empty bento carton into his trash can and tried really hard not to replay the last hour in his mind.</p><p>He'd pointed Usagi in the direction of Mita, and then she'd turned back into Sailor Moon, uniform once again pristine, and with a smile had vaulted off into the night, leaving him with a mass of emotions he didn't want to unpack.</p><p>Sailor Moon was Odango Atama, which meant that the blonde stranger who had so thoroughly captured his imagination was somehow even more amazing than he'd thought – and even more off-limits.</p><p>And yet… she drew him like a magnet. Years of clinical training had barely saved him from the flub of admitting that he hadn't <em>only</em> been counting her breaths earlier when he'd forgotten to take the thermometer back from her.</p><p>But they were clearly meant to be teammates, some kind of predestined partnership in the fight against evil. Why else would her terror split his head, her screams call him like a homing beacon, so he could rush to her side? She wasn't meant for <em>him</em>, though – there was a dream-princess to think of, after all, and besides that, it was a well-known rule that doctors weren't supposed to take care of close friends or family members, since such close ties impeded the ability to be objective.</p><p>He blew out a breath of air and tamped down on his fluttering feelings as he gathered his blanket, now carrying the faintest scent of vanilla, and carried it into his bathroom, shoving it haphazardly into his small washing machine.</p><p>Half an hour later, he stepped out on the balcony to drape it over the railing, glad that the warm evening would make sleeping without a blanket more tolerable.</p><p>He looked up at the skyline, and for a fraction of a second, he thought he saw her shadow cross the waxing gibbous, a streamer of golden hair bisecting the glow of the moonlight. He curled fingers into his damp blanket as a shaky breath caught in his chest, leaving his throat dry.</p><p>
  <em>Shit, how am I supposed to work with her when I'm </em>
  <em>
    <strong>this</strong>
  </em>
  <em> attracted to her?</em>
</p>
<hr/>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading this first installment, and I hope that you enjoyed! If you did, I'd love to hear from you in the reviews/comments! Keep an eye out for the next chapter, I'm currently planning to post them every six days until the story is done :)</p><p>Rogue, sending you all the love and I hope this is fulfilling your wishes so far!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Shapelin Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And we're back with chapter two! Happy Christmas, to those of you who celebrate, and happy Friday to those who don't!</p><p>Forever gratitude to my beta FloraOne for her support and feedback. She is an absolute treasure and made this story much better than it otherwise would have been.</p><p>Thank you also everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and followed so far! Rogue, I'm so so happy you're enjoying it so far, and I hope this chapter keeps that vibe going!</p><p>Now, please enjoy some Usagi and Mamoru failing to communicate!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Today <em>sucked</em>.</p><p>She'd overslept and been late to her mascot gig that morning – it wasn't her fault that she had to go out after midnight to fight the forces of darkness, but since she couldn't use that excuse, she'd still been chewed out for her irresponsibility and forced to wear the smelly duck costume because someone else had already claimed the cute pastel bunny suit she usually wore.</p><p>Then, after three hours trapped in a B.O. nightmare, she'd realized that she'd left her wallet in the genkan at home and couldn't even buy lunch before she had to try to make herself presentable and then dash to her afternoon shift at OSA-P.</p><p>When, an hour into that shift, her stomach had gurgled so loudly that it disturbed some customers who were browsing wedding rings, Osaka-san finally took pity on her and gave her a handful of yen and a short break to run down to the Conbini and grab a snack.</p><p>Since it was such a miserable day, she'd ended up buying what was basically a sack stuffed full of nikuman – she needed comfort food, calories be damned.</p><p>Of course, with it being such a shit day, when she was gorging herself on fatty pork buns <em>would</em> be the exact moment she ran into the guy of her dreams.</p><p>Again.</p><p>He blinked at her owlishly, like she was some kind of anomaly that he hadn't expected to see on Azabujuban-dori on a Tuesday afternoon, before saying "Is that cannibalism?"</p><p>It was Usagi's turn to blink. "What?"</p><p>Mamoru's deep blue eyes flicked between her mouth and the bag full of pork buns, then back to her mouth. "…Odango Atama, eating odango?"</p><p>She felt her entire face turn red, and wished, not for the first time, that her complexion didn't show every stupid flush so easily.</p><p>"Shut up, baka!" she cried with a small stamp of her foot. "Anyway, don't you have lives to be saving or something better to do besides tease hungry girls on the street?"</p><p>He chuckled, digging his hands into the pockets of some truly ugly purple pleated pants. <em>Maybe he was gorgeous, but who dressed this guy?</em></p><p>"Nah, not today, Odango," he said. "I'm on-call, so unless there's an emergency at the hospital, I have the day off."</p><p>"Must be nice," she muttered. Between superheroing and her half-dozen odd jobs, Usagi couldn't remember her last real day off. <em>Even Naru's university at least gave her weekends off.</em></p><p>"What about you?" Mamoru asked, falling into step next to her. "Besides eating your body weight in nikuman, what are you up to today?"</p><p>Usagi paused, another comforting roll of steamed dough most of the way to her mouth, before crying out. "Oh no! It's definitely been more than fifteen minutes, Osaka-san is going to be furious with me!"</p><p>In her panic, she shoved the leftover buns into Mamoru's arms – there would be nowhere to store them inside the swanky jewelry shop – and dashed down the street at a full sprint, out of breath as she skidded through the store's sliding glass doors, professing profuse apologies to Osaka-san.</p><p>After the elegant older woman calmed her down, Usagi finally returned to her post to finish out her shift, feeling like a complete disaster.</p><hr/><p>Standing on the sidewalk with his arms full of pork buns, Mamoru stared in the direction that she had sped off in, kicking himself.</p><p>
  <em>It was official. He had no idea how to talk to this woman.</em>
</p><p>Not that he'd claim he had much of a handle on how to talk to <em>any</em> woman – not outside of the minimalist professional capacity of "Here's the scalpel you asked for," "Did you need to borrow my notes from last weekend's medical conference?" or "Thank you for catching the penicillin allergy on that patient's chart, that could have been bad."</p><p>But with Usagi? One look at her, and it was open mouth, insert foot.</p><p>It wasn't his fault that he hadn't been prepared to run into her today, especially not in a sleek peach dress that hugged her every curve. Struck silent by how she glowed in the afternoon light, he'd blurted out the first thing that had come to his head, which had somehow wound up being an insult. <em>Stupid. </em>But hardly out-of-character.</p><p>And now he had a bag of at least four leftover pork buns, a swirling head, and thanks to his day off, nothing to keep his mind occupied.</p><p>He racked his brain for any convenient distractions, and was gratified when he remembered that Motoki had told him he'd picked up a shift at the Crown for his parents today. He could use a coffee, and his friend usually had good advice – and a girlfriend, to boot. If Mamoru could figure out a non-incriminating way to explain his situation to Motoki, he was sure his friend would be able to tell him what to do.</p><hr/><p>Usagi drooped like a flower that hadn't been watered in weeks as she made her way down the street towards the train station.</p><p>The rest of her shift hadn't improved her dour mood, especially not when her last customer of the day had slipped through her fingers and left without purchasing anything. Osaka-san's patience and understanding about the whole thing had just made her feel worse – like she couldn't even expect better from her and had probably only given her the job in the first place because Naru had begged.</p><p>
  <em>Can't I do anything right?</em>
</p><p>She was so thick in her cloud of doom that she wasn't paying attention to where she was putting her trudging feet, and she bumped bodily into another person.</p><p>Startled, she recoiled back, looking up for the first time and blinking in all kinds of surprise at the familiar face – one she hadn't seen in years.</p><p>"Oh, Haruna-sensei! Hi!" Her eyes flicked down to take in the full form of her old middle school teacher, clad in athletic gear and looking extremely fit, and Usagi stumbled over her words. "Wo-ow, you look great!"</p><p>"Tsukino Usagi!" Haruna-sensei reached out to steady Usagi, a big smile on her face. "It's so nice to see you again! And thanks," She lowered her voice, leaning in close. "I've been coming here for less than a week! They work miracles!"</p><p>Usagi looked up, reading the word <em>Shapelin</em> printed on the side of the building Haruna-sensei had just come out of. "Is it… some kind of a gym?" she asked, and Haruna-sensei nodded.</p><p>"A fitness center, really, with a spa and everything! And they're currently running a free trial, so you can sign up for two weeks and then cancel without paying a single yen!"</p><p>Usagi's eyes went big as Haruna-sensei explained the current promotion. It was hard for her to find the motivation to go to the gym, even on a good day, but going to a fitness center, with a spa? For free? Maybe her day was looking up, after all.</p><p>"Thanks, Haruna-sensei!" Usagi said, waving as she prepared to dash off, feeling rejuvenated for the first time since she'd given up her nikuman to Mamoru hours ago.</p><p>If she was going to a miracle gym that would make her as slim as Haruna-sensei in a week, there was something she wanted to do first.</p><p>The familiar sound of the arcade bell's chime brought a smile to her face as she walked through the doors, beelining for the counter to find Motoki. But instead of Motoki, she found a broad back wrapped in ugly green tweed, and her heart sped up.</p><p>"Gr-Mamoru! What are you doing here?"</p><p>He held up his mug, arching an eyebrow at her. "Coffee, Odango," he said, voice cool-as-you-please. "Why are you here?"</p><p>"Oh, um, I came in to get a milkshake and say hi to Motoki."</p><p>"You know Motoki?"</p><p>"<em>You</em> know Motoki?"</p><p>The blond in question emerged from around the corner, a coffeepot in hand, which he used to refill Mamoru's cup as he looked between them with a big grin. "Oh good, you two met. I was wondering when that would happen. Anyway, like I was saying earlier, Mamoru, just because you work together doesn't mean you <em>have</em> to keep things professional. Can't you talk to your HR department about their policy on interdepartmental relationships?"</p><p>She felt something in her stomach pop and deflate. <em>Of course there was some girl Mamoru liked.</em> Probably a gorgeous, sophisticated surgeon with shiny dark hair, who was never late to anything and didn't still smell vaguely like the inside of a sweaty duck costume. They could line up their scheduled days off so they could spend time together at fancy restaurants that Usagi couldn't afford, eating dainty portions and talking about doctor things.</p><p>Mamoru stiffened slightly. "Let's just say my HR department didn't exactly express a positive perspective on the idea," he muttered through gritted teeth, in a tone that clearly suggested this wasn't his favorite topic.</p><p>"Ah, too bad, man," Motoki said, finally turning his full attention to Usagi. "Hey, Usa, how are you doing today? Can I get you your usual chocolate milkshake?"</p><p>Usagi did her best flirty-eyelash-bat, the one she'd been practicing on Motoki since she was about thirteen. "Could you put it on my tab today?"</p><p>Motoki chuckled, shaking his head fondly. "Forgot your wallet again?"</p><p>She flinched, her gaze sliding over to Mamoru, but he was impassively sipping his coffee and clearly didn't care in the slightest that his mess of a predetermined partner couldn't manage her personal life. "…Yeah," she muttered, and Motoki grinned and winked.</p><p>"One chocolate shake on the house, coming right up."</p><hr/><p>As Motoki disappeared around the counter to scoop ice cream, Mamoru set his coffee back down on the counter with a soft clink, trying to ignore the stab of jealousy in his belly. "You know Motoki has a serious girlfriend, right?"</p><p>"Of course I know Motoki has a girlfriend!" Usagi snapped, rolling her eyes at him. "I've known Motoki practically forever, he and Reika are totally gonna get married. That doesn't mean I can't flirt with him to get a free shake occasionally." She crossed her arms with a huff, then threw one knee over the other for good measure, forcing Mamoru to avert his eyes in an attempt to not stare at her legs. "Besides, what do you care if I wanna flirt with someone who's practically engaged?"</p><p>Mamoru shrugged, carefully keeping his voice flat and his face free of the emotions roiling in his gut. "I don't, I just don't want to have to deal with the fallout."</p><p>
  <em>Liar.</em>
</p><p>She rolled her eyes right back. "Whatever. Anyway, baka, just let me enjoy this? This is, like, my last hurrah before I start going to Shapelin Gym. I really need to get in better shape, I almost passed out during the last fight."</p><p>His jaw dropped open at her ridiculous statement. "Usagi, you were bleeding heavily and very nearly went into shock, that's not the same thing as being out of shape."</p><p>She shrugged, keeping her voice low. "I could still be in <em>better</em> shape. Sailor Moon isn't any use to anyone if she can't actually show up and fight evil," she pointed out, and he inhaled sharply through his nose.</p><p>"Well," he said, voice tart even to his own ears. "I suppose that's why the universe paired us up."</p><p>She perhaps would have retorted, certainly looked like she wanted to, but Motoki returned then carrying a thick milkshake topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Usagi grabbed the frosty glass with both hands and spun on her stool to face furiously forward, away from Mamoru, her face turning the same shade as the candied cherry as she took a long sip through the striped straw.</p><p>"Everything okay?" Motoki asked and Usagi grinned big and fake.</p><p>"Great! Thanks for the shake!"</p><p>Motoki grinned back, then shot a disapproving look at Mamoru as he tossed his towel over his shoulder. "Okay, I'm gonna go do a sweep of the arcade. Try to be nice." The final sentence was said quietly and directed specifically at Mamoru.</p><p>Anyone else might have resented the de facto assumption that he was the problem, but even when he was trying to be nice, Mamoru tended to screw up anything remotely interpersonal – considering that Motoki was the only person who'd yet managed (or really even bothered to try) to make it past Mamoru's default prickly exterior, it was a fair conclusion that if something was wrong between him and Usagi, it was probably Mamoru's fault.</p><p>Motoki moved out onto the main floor, disappearing into the maze of game machines, and Mamoru looked over at Usagi, who was rapidly slurping down the rest of her shake.</p><p>"Usag-"</p><p>"Save it," she said, voice frostier than her glass, now empty but for some residual whipped cream in the bottom. She returned her cup to the counter with a sharp thunk. "You don't have to put up with me just because 'the universe paired us up.' Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get stronger so I won't need you to swoop in and rescue me anymore."</p><p>With a flick of a golden pigtail, Usagi shoved past him and out the Crown's swooshing glass doors, leaving Mamoru behind with a half-full cup of coffee, a crushing sense of guilt, and fumbling for any way to explain to Motoki that it had been an accident.</p><hr/><p>Violently pedaling the stationary bike, Usagi's imagination painted a vivid scenario in which she was chasing down perfect fucking Mamoru so she could knock him over. Into his perfect surgeon girlfriend, with whom she was sure he was deliriously happy because he wasn't burdened by the universe with 'protecting' her.</p><p>Sota, the bulky personal trainer who had been assigned to Usagi, stood less than a meter away and didn't even bother trying to call out encouragement, like the other two instructors in the room did for the people they were supervising. Usagi was a woman possessed, channeling all the awfulness of her day into her fantasy of proving to Mamoru that she was <em>just fine</em> without him.</p><p>
  <em>Preferably with a hard elbow check to the ribs.</em>
</p><p>But anger can only burn so long, and as Usagi drained herself of energy, she also slowly exhausted the flames of her fury.</p><p>Panting, she finally stopped pedaling and dragged the back of a hand against her sweaty forehead. Sota almost looked impressed, and a blond man in sporty sunglasses – <em>why did he seem vaguely familiar to her?</em> – appeared, clapping his hands. "Congratulations, ladies, you're all looking wonderfully fit," he said. "Now please, follow me down to our luxury spa, and I'll show you the pride of Shapelin."</p><p>Usagi's legs suddenly felt rather gelatinous after her intense workout, and she was pretty sure hearts had just appeared in her eyes at the mention of a spa. She would kill for a nap and a snack right now, so some pampering relaxation sounded like the next best thing.</p><p>Following the blond man down a set of steps on wobbly legs, they came out in the basement, where Usagi's spine suddenly prickled. <em>Something down here was off.</em></p><p>"This is our Shape Ray," the blond man was saying proudly, gesturing to a series of glowing pods that set off alarm bells in Usagi's head. "No other gym has one like it, but it works wonders. Slims you down, makes you healthy and gorgeous. Everyone who uses one comes back for another session, and they look just radiant."</p><p>The two other girls exchanged excited glances, but Usagi couldn't shake the weird sensation that there was something… wrong with those pods.</p><p>She didn't want to get in one, and she was pretty sure that other people shouldn't, either.</p><p>Squinting at the blond man, her heart suddenly began to beat triple-time. <em>It was the DJ from Midnight Zero! </em>she realized with a horrified jolt. <em>The Shapelin Gym had to be another energy-stealing scheme!</em></p><p>"Oh, I, um," she said, when she realized the other two girls had been sealed up in pods while she'd been thinking, and that the blond man was now standing next to a third open pod and staring at her expectantly. "I left my water bottle," she said, even though she hadn't brought one in the first place. "Upstairs. And it's, um, my lucky water bottle, that my grandma gave me, so I should really, um. I should go get it, before somebody takes it."</p><p>"We have an excellent lost-and-found," he reassured her in a soothing voice. "You can pick up your water bottle from there on your way out."</p><p>"No, I would just… I really love that water bottle, and I'd never forgive myself if I lost it," she said. "I'll be right back, okay?" And without giving the blond man the chance to argue with her further, she turned tail and ran back up the stairs, her quads screaming at her every step of the way.</p><p>As soon as she burst out of the creepy basement, she darted to the side, hiding in a row of lockers in a nearby hall.</p><p>She was on her own here, and had no intention of summoning Tuxedo Mask for help. Admittedly, she also really wasn't sure how that worked in the first place, but she was going to try to think very self-sufficient thoughts and hope that stopped him from realizing she was fighting.</p><p>Satisfied with her plan – go down in the basement, think empowered thoughts, and destroy the Shape Ray machine with her tiara, who needs unreasonably handsome men in capes and top hats anyway – she took just a second to confirm that she was alone before throwing up a hand.</p><p>"Moon Prism Power, Make-Up!"</p><p>A fanfare and a burst of ribbons and bubblegum-pink magic later, Sailor Moon kicked open the basement doors – only to remember with a painful wince that her whole body was sore from her overexertion on the exercise bike.</p><p>
  <em>No, Usagi, don't think about that! Self-sufficient, self-sufficient, I've got this! </em>
</p><p>She ran down the steps, two at a time because it was dramatic, not because her joints were loose, and cried out "Hey! Preying on the insecurities of young women who just want to be healthy and in shape, how dare you! I am Sailor Moon, and in the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"</p><p>Highlighted in an unsettling green glow, the blond man surveying the two women in the pods looked over his shoulder with a sinister smile.</p><p>"Ah, the Sailor-suited Moon-brat again," he said, slowly turning around. "I wondered when you might show up here. In fact, I prepared a little welcoming party for you." He clapped his hands together once, then melted into the shadows of the basement.</p><p>Sailor Moon twitched, not sure what the man had meant by a 'welcoming party' but suspecting it wasn't one that was going to involve cake or anything else fun. Then she shrieked when the weighted end of a large barbell missed her left foot by barely an inch, sending her skittering to one side of the cramped basement as quickly as she could.</p><p>Sota had just swung a long, weighted bar at her menacingly, his eyes glazed over and unseeing. The other two trainers she'd seen upstairs also emerged from the shadows, wielding heavy kettlebells and dumbbells.</p><p>
  <em>This was not good.</em>
</p><p>Her back to the basement wall and her muscles already protesting, she recoiled slightly in terror, only to realize that without the blond fake-trainer standing sentinel, the two girls in the Shape Ray machine weren't going to be taken out in time – already, they were beginning to look sickly, outlines of bones showing sharp through paper-thin skin.</p><p>With a fumbling hand, she reached up and plucked the golden circlet from her forehead, the familiar action of spinning it in her fingers providing a small comfort.</p><p>With a battle cry, she launched the glowing disc into the alien technology, watching with satisfaction as the creepy green glow dissipated and cracks began to spider along the glass cases. Even better, color started returning to the faces of the two girls still enclosed in the pods.</p><p>She used her free hand to snatch the tiara out of the air with a little hiss, thighs beginning to tremble with the exertion of keeping her upright.</p><p>She almost let herself just fall down on her butt – just to rest for a <em>second </em>– but then she looked up and realized that the three fitness coaches, all at least twice her size, had not been defeated by her tiara throw and were still advancing on her.</p><p>With an absolutely blood-curdling shriek, she tried to leap through the gap between the burly men, and found that her legs didn't have their usual spring in them. One of the large men shoulder-checked her, sending her stumbling backwards.</p><p>Now she really did fall on her butt, and her jellied legs felt much too weak to get her up again.</p><p>
  <em>Oh god, she was too young to die in the basement of an evil gym! </em>
</p><p>She scrunched her eyes shut as Sota raised the barbell over his head, preparing to bring it down and collapse her skull.</p><p>She opened her mouth to scream for Tuxedo Mask. Before she could make a sound, however, a red rose split the gloom of the basement, forcing space between her and the three men.</p><p>Eyes watery with terror and gratitude, she looked up to find Tuxedo Mask standing high on the basement staircase, looking down his nose at the three fitness instructors.</p><p>"Sailor Moon… I need you safe, not charging in alone. You're my first teammate; I never meant I don't want to be your support. Now, your tiara!"</p><p>"But I already tried that!"</p><p>Before she'd learned who he was, she would have missed the way the muscles around Tuxedo Mask's eyes twitched slightly, like he wanted to roll them.</p><p>Even with her overwhelming surge of gratitude for his last-minute rescue, residual irritation rose up in her again at his dismissive attitude.</p><p>"I'm doing my best, okay!" she snapped, and Tuxedo Mask sighed.</p><p>"I know, Sailor Moon. Target those attacking you, not just the machine," he explained, voice much more patient than Sailor Moon's had been.</p><p>She blew out a frustrated breath as the three brawny trainers regrouped. Sure, they were attacking her, but these were people who'd been possessed! They didn't deserve to be moon-dusted!</p><p>"I don't want to hurt anybody!" she yelled, even as her back bumped against the wall when she tried to take another step back from the advancing coaches.</p><p>"There's no other way!" the masked hero answered, and she grit her teeth.</p><p>Short of Tuxedo Mask whisking her away, she couldn't think of another option, and if she simply fled she would leave the trainers under the Dark Kingdom's influence to do god-knows-what. <em>Still, there </em><em><strong>had</strong></em><em> to be a better way!</em></p><p>But whether there was or not, Sota brandished the barbell at her and there was no more time to think about it.</p><p>Reaching up to reluctantly activate her tiara again, her eyes flicked up and her mouth dropped into a little 'o.' Each of the instructors <em>also</em> wore a golden circlet across his forehead, and she had a good guess now as to why.</p><p>Reenergized, she snatched her tiara off and gave it a powerful spin, taking careful aim. "Moon Tiara Action!"</p><p>The discus shot from her hands, ricocheting with loud clangs from man to man to man as gold bands fell from each forehead, then pronounced clunks sounded as the men dropped heavy gym equipment to the floor.</p><p>"Wha…" Sota mumbled, running a hand across his face, but before Sailor Moon could begin to fumble for some ludicrous and overwrought excuse, Tuxedo Mask had swept her into his arms and up the stairs, far from potential prying questions.</p><hr/>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope you enjoyed! If you did, maybe take a few minutes to leave me a quick review as a little Christmas present? ;)</p><p>Rogue, I hope you're having a lovely Christmas and that you are still enjoying the story!! All the love :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. An Interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So today is a special day – it's Rogue's birthday! Happiest of birthdays to you, Rogue! I hope you enjoy this fluffy(er) chapter.</p><p>To everyone who is not Rogue, once you're done reading this, please consider hopping over to her page to read and review one (or more) of her excellent stories and share the fandom love! You can find her under <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllyUnabridged/works">"AllyUnabridged"</a> on AO3 and <a href="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2392481/RogueAlly">"RogueAlly"</a> on FFN.</p><p>Thank you, as always, to the wonderful FloraOne for all her help and feedback with this chapter. I am so grateful for you!</p><p>Also, thank you so much everyone who has taken the time to comment, like, and follow this story – I appreciate each and every one so much!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tuxedo Mask set Sailor Moon down on a nearby roof, worried she was going to need medical attention again based on how unstable she'd been during the fight. The second the soles of her boots touched concrete, she sank to the rooftop with a loud exhale, knees pressed together and feet sprawled out to the sides.</p><p>"I need food," she declared, leaning her head haphazardly against his thigh and ignoring the way his entire body stiffened from the contact.</p><p>"Are you alright? Did the enemy manage to drain some of your energy?"</p><p>"Oh, no," she said, sleepily shaking her head so a golden pigtail wrapped around his ankle. "I biked fifteen miles."</p><p>"Fif- Usagi, you were still at the Crown forty-five minutes ago!" He paused, running a quick calculation in his head. <em>There were professional cyclists who would envy that pace!</em></p><p>She shrugged. "I biked fast?" He smoothed tense fingers over his forehead as she continued. "Besides, how else am I gonna get strong fast, so you don't have to deal with me anymore?"</p><p>He reached down and took her wrists, carefully pulling her up to her feet. "What do you mean 'so I don't have to deal with you?'"</p><p>"You know. Like you said, the universe paired us up so you could make sure I was actually useful for a change, but I'm sure you have better things to do than babysit me. Lives to save, surgeons to date."</p><p>Bewildered by her random assertions, he decided to stick a pin in her 'surgeons' comment and circle back to it approximately never.</p><p>"Don't tell me you biked fifteen miles in thirty minutes just because you were annoyed over something I said."</p><p>"Okay, I won't." She made no other comment, and he knew her silence was an unspoken condemnation.</p><p>He blew out a breath, rolling his eyes to the heavens in a silent plea to find the right words for a change. "I didn't mean that you needed my help," he said, schooling the pure exasperation from his tone. "I only meant that the universe brought me to you to help you carry the weight, so you didn't have to do so much by yourself!"</p><p>She looked skeptical, and he inhaled sharply. "Do you think for a second I could do this by myself? You're the one who defeats the monsters, you're the one who saves the day, while I spout haikus and patch you up when you let me. If anything, I'm the superfluous one here."</p><p>She snorted, and to his relief the cloud of annoyance around her shoulders seemed to lighten. "Be honest, how long do you spend coming up with those?"</p><p>He shrugged. "Mostly off the cuff, but after the first couple battles I <em>did </em>spend a few evenings drafting up some common five and seven syllable phrases I could pull out of my hat quickly." He dropped a hand to her waist to steady her when her ankles wobbled. "Memorizing the syllables in 'Tiara,' 'Tuxedo Mask,' and 'Sailor Moon' was particularly helpful."</p><p>
  <em>And in 'Odango Atama,' but that had been entirely a trick of his wandering mind. Usagi certainly didn't need to know about the haikus he'd idly written about her in the margins of his notes at his last medical conference. </em>
</p><p>He was relieved that she looked somewhat amused around the exhaustion, but he couldn't help but cluck his tongue when she tried to step away from him and nearly collapsed.</p><p>"Are you going to be all right getting home?" he asked, one hand on her hip and the other supporting between her shoulder blades, not about to make the same mistake of presuming she needed (or even wanted) his help without her explicit say-so.</p><p>She gave him an arched eyebrow, and apparently dubbed him sincere, because it melted into a sheepish smile. "I might have overdone it today," she admitted. "Ugh, typical. Why did today have to <em>suck </em>so friggin' <em>hard</em>!" Her voice rose in pitch with each word, ending on a loud keening whine.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask wisely kept his mouth shut, and Sailor Moon continued to rant unimpeded. "First I overslept, and then I forgot my wallet, and then I had to wear the stupid duck costume, and then I couldn't make a stupid sale, and then you-" she stopped speaking abruptly, clinking her teeth together, and Tuxedo Mask finally spoke.</p><p>"I spoke out of turn and I made it worse," he supplied, not embarrassed in the least to admit that he'd annoyed her.</p>
<hr/><p>Usagi's ears burned, and she nodded emphatically when he took responsibility for irritating her, completely unwilling to admit the real source of her distress. After all, he <em>had</em> been thoughtless, and that sounded so much more sane than resenting him for his probable perfect would-be girlfriend, with her big brain and her short-cropped hair and her flawless figure and her pretty feminine name, like Sayuri or Aimi.</p><p>
  <em>Not that she was bitter or anything.</em>
</p><p>She tried to push away from Tuxedo Mask again, and cursed audibly when her knees nearly gave out and she had to cling to him just to stop herself from falling over.</p><p>"...I might need some help getting home," she muttered begrudgingly, her fingers curling into the lapel of his jacket.</p><p>Without another word, he scooped her in his arms as if she weighed no more than a kitten, leaping into the air above the Tokyo skyline.</p><p>He steered them in the direction of Mita in a way that suggested a certain degree of familiarity with the district, but once they'd crossed the border he slowed down.</p><p>"Where do you live?" he asked, face unnervingly inexpressive.</p><p>She pointed, and he bounded from building to building before ultimately landing on her and Naru's window terrace, one-handedly sliding open the window that she never bothered to lock so they could slip into her small apartment.</p><p>As she took in the mess, she reminded herself that he didn't care if her clothes had migrated all over the living room in an impromptu fashion show, or that she'd left dirty dishes from last night's dinner out on the coffee table. So what if his apartment had been pristine, he had no interest in her anyway.</p><p>Huffing, she kicked a stray bralette under the secondhand leather couch before sinking down to sit, the protesting in her thigh muscles finally dissipating as she dropped her transformation and Usagi sprawled out across her sofa instead. She let out a little sigh of relief, then toed off her shoes, dumping them beneath the coffee table in a heap.</p><p>Once Sailor Moon had vanished, Tuxedo Mask followed suit, leaving Mamoru standing in her living room and her cheeks flushing red at the reality of her dream guy standing in her cramped and cluttered apartment.</p><p>There was a pause, long enough to make her shift awkwardly against the grain of her couch cushions, before Mamoru filled the silence. "You said you needed food?"</p><p>She looked up, surprised, then waved a hand. "I'll call and order something," she said, and he shook his head, shifting his weight almost imperceptibly between his feet.</p><p>"Delivery always takes a while. I could whip something up; what do you have in the house?"</p><p>Usagi shrugged as she tried to wrack her brain for whatever she'd bought on her last grocery trip, whenever that had been.</p><p>"I have no idea," she admitted, annoyed all over again that this unflappable man kept finding new and even messier parts of her life, whether she wanted him to or not. "Just… help yourself to whatever's in the cabinets, I'll work it out with my roommate later."</p><p>He froze with his fingers on the knob of her kitchen pantry, swiveling his head from side to side as though he was checking the apartment for intruders. "Roommate. Right, you mentioned that."</p><p>Shrugging again, she attempted to flex her coral-painted toes and give her tired calves a well-deserved stretch. "I mean, she's not here. On Wednesdays, she usually sleeps over at her boyfriend's."</p><p>Fortunately, Luna was nowhere to be found either. Sometimes the cat went out on secret mission-related errands, and she was glad not to have to explain Mamoru's presence to her guardian.</p><p>His nod was slight. "Should I get out of here?" he asked after a moment's pause. "Do you also have standing Wednesday night company?"</p><p>She arched an eyebrow at his weird phrasing, then snorted as she worked out what he was actually asking her. "Oh, no. I wish, but who has the time?" <em>Besides everyone in the whole world but me. </em></p><p>She heard his soft inhale, sharp to her ears, and then his quiet murmur. "Who, indeed?"</p>
<hr/><p><em>No boyfriend.</em> He reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to be happy about that even as relief squirmed through his gut.</p><p><em>Teammates</em>, he repeated to himself for at least the dozenth time as he opened cabinet doors and rifled through packs of instant miso, instant ramen, instant yakisoba, strawberry pocky, pucca, and umaibo. <em>It didn't matter if she was single. </em></p><p>He kept his head in the cabinet for an extra few moments, telling himself it was to confirm that there was no non-instant food in the house but in actuality allowing enough time to let the burning of his ears die down.</p><p>Then, he grabbed the first package he put his hand on – instant yakisoba – and said "Korean BBQ okay?"</p><p>She nodded, and he filled her Hello Kitty kettle to the line, peeling back the lid of the yakisoba as he waited for the water to boil.</p><p>He fumbled through the cabinet again, this time coming up with tea and honey, which he poured into a Sailor V mug he found in another cabinet.</p><p>A few minutes later, he brought a carefully balanced tray, mug, and chopsticks over to her, swapping them with dirty dishes that he brought to the sink and began washing automatically.</p><p>Usagi looked like she might be considering stopping him, but whether she would have remained unknown, because there was a jingle of keys and then a woman with short curly hair bustled into the apartment with a call of "I'm home!"</p><p>"Naru!" Usagi exclaimed through a mouthful of noodles, and the redhead's eyes flicked between her roommate on the couch and Mamoru in the kitchen, eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline.</p><p>"I forgot my textbook and Umino drove me back over to get it… Usa, who is <em>this</em>?"</p><p>Up to his elbows in suds, for once it was Mamoru left fumbling for a plausible excuse.</p><p>"This is my friend Mamoru," Usagi said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "You remember I told you about him?"</p><p>"Ohhhhh," Naru said, tapping a finger against her temple. "Yeah, I remember now. Okay, I'm just gonna go grab that book and then I'll head back out. Nice to meet you, Mamoru!"</p><p>The redhead disappeared through a doorway as Mamoru began drying dishes with the strawberry-print dishtowel, glancing to Usagi and hoping the emotional tether between Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask didn't run both ways.</p><p>
  <em>What had she told her roommate about him?</em>
</p><p>Naru passed through the living room again with a cheery "Bye!" and disappeared out the front door with another jingle of her keys, leaving Mamoru and Usagi in silence.</p><p>He cleared his throat. "You told your roommate about me?"</p><p>"Duh," she answered through another slurp of her noodles. "Otherwise, what was I supposed to say if this exact situation happened?"</p><p>She had a point, but the answer was wholly unsatisfying. His heart beat with the need to know what she had said, if 'that cute guy from outside OSA-P' had just been the bloodloss talking or if maybe that was also how she'd described him to her roommate.</p><p>
  <em>Did she feel this magnetic pull, too?</em>
</p><p>Focusing his attention on finishing his chore in the hopes it would give him time to tamp down these feelings, he drained the sink, then carefully arranged the now-sparkling dishes in the cupboard until finally he had no other choice but to return to Usagi, moving a large stuffed Totoro to the floor before taking a seat on the far corner of the couch and pressing the pads of his fingers against each other.</p><p>He felt no more settled than he had before.</p><p>Eyes flicking over to Usagi, he found her still happily eating, legs sprawled out along the cushions with one bare foot mere inches from his thigh. He inhaled, pressing both his lips and his palms together.</p><p>
  <em>He'd gotten her home and fed, so if he left now he wasn't a creep, right?</em>
</p><p>"What?" she said, an eyebrow quirking, and he felt heat rush to his face when he realized he'd never looked away from her.</p><p>She reached up, pressing her palm to her cheek. "Did I get sauce on my face? That always happens..." Her pink tongue poked out, licking at the corner of her mouth, and he nearly jumped off the couch.</p><p>Averting his gaze to stare very hard at his feet instead, he shook his head. "Sorry, just zoned out."</p>
<hr/><p>If her legs hadn't felt so heavy, she might have hopped up just to double-check she didn't have something splotched across her face. But as it was, Mamoru had already seen her looking gross once and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to make it to the bathroom without falling over anyway.</p><p>So she shrugged, slurping down the last few noodles and then tossing the empty yakisoba packet onto the table. Then she picked up the tea and whatever lingering annoyance she might have had with him melted away when she realized he'd put honey in it this time.</p><p>Soft eyes drifted towards him as her heart rate increased slightly. He was leaning forward over his hands, staring at the ground, completely in his own little world. She managed to move her leg enough to poke him gently with her toes.</p><p>"Hey."</p><p>He looked over at her, startled, and she smiled at him.</p><p>"You didn't make anything for yourself?"</p><p>He separated his hands in a half-shrug. "It's not my house."</p><p>"Oh, come on, you're my guest, kind of. At least make yourself some tea or something."</p><p>He shook his head, but got up and busied himself in her and Naru's little kitchen nook. While he worked, she took a slow soothing sip of her sweetened tea.</p><p>After her long and terrible day, it was nice to just sit on the couch and relax, and she was glad for the company – normally on Wednesdays, she wound up all alone. She couldn't lie and say that a part of her didn't wish that Mamoru had come over for another reason, but she could file such thoughts away for later.</p><p>As she pushed the not-very-teammately images of Mamoru from her mind, he came back and reclaimed his spot on the couch next to her, leaving enough space that a large St. Bernard could have comfortably curled up between them.</p><p>Usagi frowned at this, scootching her butt closer to him in a way that involved as little effort from her legs as possible. Then she looked up at him expectantly, Sailor V teacup held in her lap.</p><p>"What?" Mamoru said after a moment, shifting slightly when he realized she was openly staring at him.</p><p>"I was just wondering if you often come over to people's houses and then just sit on their couch in complete silence," she said before scrunching her face at him and grinning.</p><p>He shifted again, this time tugging on the collar of his black turtleneck. "Uh. No, not really."</p><p>"Oh," she said, her teasing spirit flying away as quickly as it came. Even if he didn't think she was a burden, it wasn't like he wanted to be around her more than necessary, either.</p><p>"I don't usually go over to other people's homes to begin with," he continued, and took a sip of his (plain) tea. She noticed his ears looked slightly pink, and felt a flutter in her chest.</p><p>"Oh…?" She tilted her head slightly. <em>What about Sayuri?</em></p><p>He shrugged, setting his mug down on a coaster Usagi had never seen before. "Medical school was taxing, as is residency, so I've always, er, had a bit of a tendency to keep my personal life on the backburner."</p><p>"Wait, wait," she said, plonking her cup down on the table – had the mug been more full, tea would have slopped out. "So you're saying… you don't have friends?"</p>
<hr/><p>Hearing her of all people say it made him feel worse about his social life than usual, and his shoulders hunched forward. "Don't be silly, you know I'm friends with Motoki."</p><p>She waved a hand. "But you've got other friends besides Motoki, right?"</p><p>When he shifted in his seat but didn't say anything, she flexed a fist to her shoulder. "Well, you do now!" she declared. "If the universe thinks you and I oughta save the world together, I think we should at least be friends while we do it!"</p><p>He snorted but smiled warmly at her. "I think there's more to becoming friends than someone just declaring themselves to be friends now."</p><p>Usagi crossed her arms and raised her chin in the air. "Excuse you, mister, but since I have tons of friends and you have two, I'm gonna trust <em>my </em>expert opinion on this one."</p><p>He opened his mouth to object to her use of the word 'two' – after all, they'd <em>just </em>established that Motoki was his only friend – and froze when he realized that she'd counted herself as the second.</p><p>Feeling something soft and glowing unfurl below his breastbone, he cleared his throat as his cheeks warmed. "Uh. T-thank you," he said.</p><p>She smirked, nestling back into the sofa. "Yeah, see, friends do stuff like tell each other when they're wrong," she said, gently kicking him in the shin again. "I know this is all new to you, but don't worry. I don't mind teaching you."</p><p>Of course, staring into her sky-blue eyes a part of him knew 'friends' still wasn't what he wanted, though he did at least prefer it to 'predestined teammates.'</p><p>He took a sip of his tea because it was something to do with his hands, and it gave him something to look at other than her face. The mug he had picked out of the cabinet had a black cat painted on its side, sitting atop a crescent moon, and he traced the line of her tail with his thumb. He idly wondered where Usagi had gotten this mug – for whatever reason, he could sense that it was hers, not her roommate's.</p><p>He finally looked up again and nearly choked on his tea. While he'd been distracted, Usagi had apparently gotten a little too comfortable on the couch – her eyes had drifted closed and her mouth had fallen open, emitting gentle snores.</p><p>He set his mug down on the table, reaching a hand out to shake her back awake – and then paused. If she'd had such a terrible day, and worked out to the point of physical exhaustion, then she could use the sleep. But…</p><p>His face burned vermillion as he imagined carrying her into her room. He momentarily pictured the twist of covers on her bed, the kinds of garments that were surely scattered all about her private space – and his heart palpitated. Considering what the living room had looked like, he wasn't sure he could handle the intimacy of her bedroom.</p><p>That left him with two options – wake her up, or leave her to sleep on the couch.</p><p>He didn't debate for long. She'd been struggling to stand even before she'd fallen asleep, and waking her only to discover she needed help to make it to her bedroom wouldn't make his life any easier.</p><p>Satisfied with his logic and the conclusion it had led him to, he looked around for something to cover her with as she slept. There was no afghan tossed over the back of the worn leather couch, no basket of throw blankets in a corner. He wasn't about to go pull the covers off her bed, nor was he willing to invade her roommate's privacy.</p><p>Struck by the dilemma, he occupied himself with washing out the two mugs and disposing of her empty yakisoba carton as his mind tried to come up with a solution.</p><p>He didn't realize how gloriously simple it was until he transformed back into Tuxedo Mask so he could make the journey home. As he swept back the cape, he nearly planted a gloved palm on his forehead. <em>Of course. </em></p><p>Pulling the garment from his shoulders, he carefully draped it over her body. As he tucked the edges in around her, she sighed and smiled, small fingers curling around the hem of his cape as she snuggled into the couch.</p><p>His stomach did an impressive backflip, and he couldn't quite resist the urge to smooth her bangs back from her face.</p><p>"Call me if you need anything," he whispered, repeating the words he'd written on the pad of paper next to her refrigerator, under the ten digits of his home phone number.</p><p>He knelt next to her for a prolonged moment, taking in her sleeping form, before finally rising to his feet and making his way across the small living room. He pushed open the window he'd first climbed in through, and took one final look back at Usagi before leaping out into the moonlit night.</p><p>Capeless, Tuxedo Mask made his way back home to Azabujuban where, try as he might, it was a long time before he was able to fall asleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope you enjoyed! As a reminder, if you did, please also go check out <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllyUnabridged/works">Rogue's stories</a> – she has a wide variety, and this is written to her tastes, so if you enjoyed this then I promise you that she has written something you will like! Go find that and leave her a birthday review!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Resolving Petty Squabbles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy 2021!! I hope you and your loved ones are safe, warm, and happy. </p><p>I am eternally grateful to FloraOne, my biggest cheerleader and the best beta I could ask for. As usual, she helped me punch up this chapter and make it better for you all!!</p><p>Thank you so much all of you who have taken the time to read and review - I'm really feeling the love!! Again, I'm absolutely delighted to have had the chance to write for Rogue, and I hope you enjoy this new installment!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Desperate fingers clawed themselves into raven locks, and she let out a panting gasp as his mouth nuzzled into the curve of her neck. Smirking lips parted to reveal white teeth, which gently bit down on the sensitive skin of her throat and sent a shiver quaking to her center.</p><p>His fingers curled into the hem of her top and-</p><p>"Oof!" Lapis eyes jerked abruptly open and quickly morphed from sleep-stunned into a glare directed at the purple-black cat who had just hopped onto her belly and woke her. Luna was staring down at her quizzically, and Usagi was in no mood to be quizzed.</p><p>"Usagi, where did this cape come from?"</p><p>Usagi groaned, attempting to jerk said cape up to cover her face as best she could with four-and-a-half kilograms of cat weighing it down. In response, Luna dug in her claws.</p><p>"Usagi!"</p><p>"Ow! Luna, go away, you totally ruined my dream!"</p><p>"Yes, what <em>were</em> you dreaming about?" the cat said sardonically. "Your breathing got all quick, but you were smiling so I <em>know</em> it wasn't fighting."</p><p>Cheeks flushing a color reminiscent of the inside of a ripe watermelon, Usagi kicked herself up to a seated position on the couch, and Luna hit the floor with a discontented yowl.</p><p>"Oh, good, my legs are working again," Usagi said, conveniently ignoring Luna's question in favor of something slightly less embarrassing. <em>No way was she sharing her naughty dreams about Mamoru with her feline guardian</em>.</p><p>"Usagi." Luna's muffled, disapproving voice drifted up from the floor. "Where did you get Tuxedo Mask's cape from? Didn't we decide you should stay away from him?"</p><p>"No, you decided," Usagi said as she rose up to stand on sore legs, stretching the kinks from her back. "Luna, if he really was an enemy, wouldn't he just let me get killed so the Dark Kingdom could harvest all the human energy? He's a good person, and let's be real – there's a lot of stuff you don't remember from our past lives."</p><p>"Which is exactly why you should exercise caution!" Luna protested, hopping up on the coffee table as Usagi opened the pantry cabinet, pulling out a box of strawberry pocky. "I can't protect you from things I don't remember!"</p><p>"Well, maybe that's why the universe gave me Tuxedo Mask," Usagi countered, cramming a biscuit stick into her mouth. "So far all he's <em>done</em> has been protect me. Between the two of you, I'm totally set!"</p><p>Luna's weary eyes looked less-than-certain, but the cat slumped against the table rather than keep arguing. Finally, she sighed. "Okay, fine, you don't have to stay away from him, not that you would even if I told you to. But seriously, how did you get his cape?"</p><p>Usagi's cheeks turned the color of her pocky, and she shoved another into her mouth. "He brought me home last night, I guess I fell asleep?"</p><p>"WHAAAAAAAAAT?!" Luna's back bristled like a Halloween decoration, and Usagi rolled her eyes.</p><p>"Luna, you <em>just said-</em>"</p><p>"He knows who you are?! He knows where you live?! You FELL ASLEEP while he was here?!"</p><p>"Luna, calm down!"</p><p>"Usagi, do you have any idea the danger you've put yourself in? Giving this guy personal information about yourself-"</p><p>"I know where he lives too!" Usagi cut Luna off abruptly. "He took me back to his place for medical care a few nights ago. I know his name, where he works, where he lives. We decided to team up, okay? I told you, he's a good person!"</p><p>"Right." Luna looked wholly unconvinced. "If the two of you are going to be a team, I should probably meet him," she said, and Usagi froze, running a hand over the back of her head with a nervous giggle.</p><p>"Um, see. I kind of haven't mentioned you to him yet?"</p><p>"Usagi!"</p><hr/><p>He was surprised by how easily he'd settled into being friends with Usagi. In the past week, they'd run into each other at the Crown several times and exchanged information about the enemy – she called it the 'Dark Kingdom' – when Motoki wasn't paying attention.</p><p>Unfortunately, spending more time with her had done nothing to quell his infatuation – instead, now he had a host of memories of her that tormented him late at night.</p><p>Whipped cream clinging to the tip of her nose when she got a little too enthusiastic about her milkshake, the sparkle in her eyes when she belly-laughed at something Motoki had said, the feel of her palm pressing into his forearm when she chastised him for putting his foot in his mouth with her – which he still did, often.</p><p>Accordingly, he'd spent most of his shift with his head in the clouds, his brain finding some way, no matter how unlikely, to connect most everything in the hospital back to her – his stethoscope conjured the swoop of her pigtails, the nurse scrubs were almost the same shade as her eyes…</p><p>He shook thoughts of Usagi from his mind as he walked past a nurse's station to find several staff members clustered around the desk. Curious, he peeked over a shoulder and realized they were all making googly-eyes over a small yellow creature that somewhat resembled a long-haired bunny.</p><p>"My Chanela is so cute!" one of the nurses cooed, petting the critter with one finger.</p><p>Mamoru, even as just an observer, had to agree. The little creature looked like something that would be right at home in Usagi's small apartment, sitting next to her cartoon-themed kettle and stuffed animals.</p><p>"Where did you get it?" A voice asked, and Mamoru was both startled and embarrassed to realize it had been his own. His ears burned as the nurse scooped up the Chanela and grinned at it.</p><p>"Pet Shop Perfume!" she answered, though her words seemed directed mostly to her pet. "It's a new luxury pet store that just recently opened in Azabujuban. You all should check it out!"</p><p>The nurses around her nodded and grinned at each other enthusiastically, and Mamoru tamped down on his own weird urge to visit the store. <em>Buying someone a pet is not teammate-level behavior</em>, he scolded himself.</p><p>He walked away from the clustered nurses and doctors, checking his patient roster with a frustrated exhale. <em>He really needed to get his head in the game, here. </em></p><hr/><p>"A Chanela?" Usagi repeated, watching her roommate sit at the coffee table and stare fondly at the adorable Easter-egg green animal she'd just brought home from a nearby pet store.</p><p>"Yes, isn't it wonderful?" Naru said in a dreamy voice. "You should get one, Usagi."</p><p>Usagi wrinkled her nose and shook her head with a sigh. It was very cute, Usagi had to admit, with its miniature ears and soft-looking fur – the pastel green was so much prettier than the jacket Mamoru always seemed to wear – but she already had a pet to take care of. "Nah, I think Luna is enough for me," she said, and Naru shrugged.</p><p>"Suit yourself," she replied, and there was a knock on the door.</p><p>"Hey, Naru, Umino's here to walk you to class!" Usagi called as she finished putting on her earrings, ready to go to her afternoon shift at OSA-P.</p><p>"I'm not feeling well," Naru said. "Tell Umino I'll see him later tonight."</p><p>Usagi arched an eyebrow – Naru looked fine to her – but shrugged. "Okay, Naru. I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" It was Wednesday, after all, and usually Naru went over to Umino's right after her classes.</p><p>"Yeah, tomorrow," agreed Naru absently, and Usagi grabbed her purse from where she'd tossed it in the genkan – wallet inside, this time – and stepped out to greet Umino.</p><p>"Hey Umino," she said. "Naru said she's not feeling well? Sorry you came all the way out here."</p><p>Umino looked distressed. "Oh no, Naru's not feeling well?! Should I skip my classes and nurse my princess back to health?"</p><p>Usagi chuckled and grinned at her best friend's boyfriend. "Nah, Umino, I bet it's just period cramps or something, she didn't look sick and she said she'd still go over to your place tonight. She's probably just gonna curl up on the couch with a hot water bottle and some Midol."</p><p>Umino's eyebrows furrowed. "Naru's period doesn't come for another two weeks," he corrected Usagi, and she shrugged with a roll of her eyes.</p><p>"Well, maybe she has a bad headache then, and just needs some peace and quiet." Suitably convinced that Naru didn't need his help, the two began walking together down the apartment building stairs. "Oh, and she got one of those Chanela things, you know, those little cross-breed rabbits?" Usagi added just before they came out on the street.</p><p>"A… Chanela? I don't know how I feel about Naru having a pet…"</p><p>"What are you talking about, Umino, you love Luna!"</p><p>"I understand your confusion, but Luna is an exception," he said. "You see, when I was a child, I was very nearly eaten by an alligator!"</p><p>"What?!" Usagi exclaimed. "Umino, why have you never told us about that before!"</p><p>"I was very small," he said. "My mother put it down on the floor in the living room, and I didn't know any better. I crawled right into its jaws, and it snapped shut on me!"</p><p>Usagi gasped, her eyes going big.</p><p>"Fortunately," Umino added dramatically, "My mother was able to get me out again before I was hurt by any of the contents. Those keys were sharp!"</p><p>At this, Usagi's horror melted into incredulity. "Wait. Umino, was this an alligator, or an alligator handbag?"</p><p>Umino shrugged. "Either way, it left me with a lifelong trepidation around animals, which so far only Luna has been able to bridge."</p><p>Rolling her eyes at her friend's antics, she gently elbowed him in the side. "Well, Naru's got one now, so be a good boyfriend and learn to get along with it, okay?"</p><p>"I'll do my best," Umino promised, and Usagi waved bye to him – OSA-P and Tokyokaiyo University were in opposite directions, after all – before heading off for her afternoon shift.</p><hr/><p>Something in the atmosphere of the hospital had changed in the last hour or so. Mamoru couldn't put his finger on quite what, but a distinct sense of unease clung to him as he moved from ward to ward.</p><p>Nurses weren't bustling around like usual. The halls were unnaturally quiet. He couldn't find his attending physician anywhere, and his last few patient charts had been filled out incorrectly or straight-up misplaced.</p><p><em>Something</em> was wrong, he could feel it down to his bones.</p><p>He circled back past the nurse's station where the staff had clustered earlier, and was stunned to see a fight had broken out. One of the staffers, Hayasha Mayumi, was trying to shoo people away from the desk, but nurses and doctors alike were refusing to budge.</p><p>His absent attending physician, Suzuki Kiko, stood by the desk as well, holding a pink Chanela.</p><p>"Please!" Mayumi cried. "Just put your Chanelas in your locker for your shift! They'll be perfectly safe!"</p><p>"I'm not putting my Chanela anywhere!" spat Suzuki-san. "Screw this job, anyway. I don't need it." She shoved through the crowd, hip-checking Mayumi into the wall as she passed, and walked up to the elevator, jabbing the call button.</p><p>A dozen other members of the hospital staff followed suit, each clutching a pastel pseudo-rabbit in their hands.</p><p>As they filed into the elevator, Mamoru's stomach sank when he realized that not one staff member who owned a Chanela had stayed.</p><p>Blowing out a breath, he went to help up Mayumi, who was trembling. "It's all right, Mayumi," he said kindly, even though it was anything but. "They're just having a bad day. Here, why don't you go to the break room and get some tea," he suggested.</p><p>Then, he looked up at the other hospital workers. "Everyone, it looks like we're short-staffed. Let's work extra hard until shift change, all right?"</p><p>The few people still remaining around the station exchanged glances and dispersed at his behest, and Mayumi made her way to the staff room.</p><p>Once he was alone, Mamoru picked up the phone from the desk, trying to guess which of the seven numbers Usagi had given him was most likely to actually reach her.</p><hr/><p>Usagi's pounding feet slapped the stairs as she ran up the five flights to her and Naru's apartment, Mamoru's words through the OSA-P phone line still ringing in her ears. <em>People are obsessed with them, tenured doctors are just walking out on their patients to keep their Chanelas with them. </em></p><p>She'd managed to convince Osaka-san to let her leave early by telling her that Naru needed her – and she was terrified of exactly how true that might be.</p><p>She blew the door open with force only a desperate superhero is capable of, and found her roommate sitting exactly where she'd left her, staring placidly at the small green monster. Her cheeks had become sunken in the time that Usagi had been at work, and she knew her friend was in trouble.</p><p>"Naru, you're supposed to be at Umino's…" Usagi said, trying to keep her voice calm in spite of her racing heart.</p><p>"I don't care about Umino," Naru said, an edge to her voice Usagi had never heard before. "Just leave me alone with my Chanela."</p><p>"No!" Usagi cried, advancing on her friend. "Naru, don't you see? This thing is evil, you have to get rid of it!" She reached down to scoop up the animal, to get it away from Naru, and inadvertently looked directly into its eyes.</p><p>A delicious foggy feeling swept through her brain, and she exhaled all her thoughts but one – Naru's Chanela was <em>so</em> cute. She could stare at it all day. In fact, she really didn't need anything else… Just looking at its silky fur was enough for her.</p><p>She slowly sank to the floor, her lips turning up in a rapturous smile as she memorized the pale green color of the Chanela – not that she ever planned to let it out of her sight long enough to forget.</p><p>"Usagi!"</p><p>"Luna, go away. I'm busy," she snapped, blindly swiping one hand at the annoying furball trying to distract her.</p><p>"Usagi!"</p><p>She grit her teeth, refusing to avert her gaze. <em>What was this stupid cat's </em><em><strong>problem</strong></em><em>? </em>"Leave me alone, or I'll kick you."</p><p>There was finally silence, and she exhaled happily, cupping her hands in her cheeks.</p><p>Her heart felt so full, her head so blissfully empty – no bills to worry about, no monsters to fight. Just the happy certainty that, so long as she could see her Chanela, everything in the world was all right.</p><p>She shrieked in horror as the nasty purple cat suddenly lunged onto the table, snatching her Chanela up by the back of the neck. She leapt up to chase it, to punish it for taking away her pet, but before she could reach it, the cat took a powerful bound and soared out the window, onto the terrace and out of her view.</p><p>With a howl of loss, she dove for the window, ready to shove that cat right off the edge and reclaim her Chanela, but before she could make it her head pinched sharply. A rush of thoughts and responsibilities surged back into her brain, leaving her dazed and blinking moisture from her eyes. "Luna," she choked out, smoothing fingers below her eyes with a soft gasp as her cat reappeared, mouth now empty. "Oh, Luna, I'm so sorry."</p><p>But there was no time for a reconciliation between them, because Naru, too, was blinking, cupping her face in her hands. "What have I been doing?!" she mumbled.</p><p>"You were just sleeping, Naru," Usagi said, wiping her face and forcing a smile. "You probably had a bad dream."</p><p>When Naru smiled at her, weak but reassured, Usagi picked up the cordless phone, cross-referenced the numbers she'd scrawled across her palm in a panic earlier, and dialed Mamoru's work number.</p><hr/><p>Tuxedo Mask edged along the wall of the back alley, silently approaching the rear entrance of the pet store. He glanced up, confirming that Sailor Moon still stood on the other side of the narrow corridor, her gloved hands pressed to the wall as she kept a lookout for any other intruders. Satisfied that they weren't about to be attacked, he pulled his trusty multitool from his pants pocket and began to carefully pick the lock.</p><p>Like he'd said to her on the phone, running in half-cocked would only give the enemy the advantage, especially if they had the power of mind control – better to sneak in unobserved and try to gather some intel first.</p><p>The door unlocked with a click that felt deafening to him, and he twisted the knob carefully, barely making any sound at all as he pushed the door open to reveal a darkened storeroom.</p><p>His eyes met Sailor Moon's, and she nodded in response, pressing her lips together in a look of determined resignation. Despite her brave face, he knew from the way her voice had trembled over the phone that she was absolutely terrified of having her will stolen from her by another one of those monsters – but he wasn't about to let that happen to her again.</p><p>Both superheroes slipped through the doorway, Tuxedo Mask veering to the right and Sailor Moon to the left. Sailor Moon disappeared into the darkness, and he hopped up a stack of boxes, seeking a high vantage point.</p><p>Hearing voices, he followed them into the rafters of the main floor of the pet shop, finding the room full of people, all dazed-eyed and sunken-cheeked.</p><p>An elegant-looking woman with red hair twisted atop her head stood before them all, and small rabbit-like creatures hopped out of glass cases and into the waiting hands of the hypnotized crowd.</p><p>"You are to take these Chanelas and distribute them throughout the city," she ordered, to the cheers of those assembled, but a crystal-clear voice interrupted their celebration.</p><p>"How dare you use people's love of cute pets against them?!" Sailor Moon appeared above the throng, arms crossed as she balanced atop a large wire cage that housed a family of lovebirds. "I, Sailor Moon, will not forgive you!"</p><p>Trying to decide if he was charmed by her bravado or exasperated by how quickly she had completely abandoned their plan, Tuxedo Mask kept his mouth shut and his position concealed, watching silently as the redhead ripped out of her skin, blue scales and a tail erupting forth.</p><p>The people in the crowd, skin already a sickly shade from their energy loss, began to turn teal and scaly as well, and he sucked in a horrified breath.</p><p>Sailor Moon shrieked as the dragon-lady took a swipe at her with her claws; looking up with frightened eyes, she took in the advancing reptilian mob. Clearly outnumbered, Sailor Moon squealed loudly before she turned tail and fled, running back to the storage room from which they'd just entered.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask groaned inaudibly as he doubled back, retracing his steps to emerge in the back room, finding Sailor Moon cornered. He was identifying his ideal position and taking a beat to scan the room for any Chanelas when suddenly, an eggplant-colored blur zipped in through the back door, bouncing off boxes before it settled itself on the small blonde's shoulder.</p><p>"Sailor Moon!" The words drifted up to him, his agitated fingers digging into the crossbeams as he tried to identify the small intruder. "Use Moon Tiara Magic!"</p><p>Tuxedo Mask's teeth dug into his bottom lip. <em>That was </em><em><strong>his</strong></em><em> line.</em></p><p>"I can't!" she cried. "It's not these people's fault that they're possessed!"</p><p>"Then throw your tiara and instead say 'Moon Tiara Stardust!'"</p><p>"Will that work?!"</p><p>"Would you just trust me for once!"</p><p>Sailor Moon snatched her tiara from her forehead, motion fluid as habit; even from his bird's-eye view, he couldn't believe that he'd ever been unable to tell that Sailor Moon and Usagi were the same person.</p><p>She hurled the discus with all her might, sending it spinning and rocketing glitter over the assembled horde. One by one, each scaly human collapsed to the ground and lapsed into unconsciousness, teal fading to flesh as their Chanelas crumbled to dust.</p><p>"Luna!" she cried, plucking the boomerang from the air. "Why couldn't you have told me about that before?!"</p><p>But whoever Luna was, she didn't have a chance to reply as the leader, still a giant lizard and not even slowed by the tiara's sparkling dust, raked great claws at Usagi and her unknown helper.</p><p>As he heard their intertwining screams, he knew that was his cue. Plummeting from the rafters of the store, Tuxedo Mask leapt between the monster and Usagi, spinning his cane in a powerful vortex to deflect the youma's terrible grip.</p><p>"Now, Sailor Moon!" he cried, and she followed his command without question, this time calling the familiar words of her usual attack.</p><p>The blue-scaled beast wailed as the golden circlet cut her down; a breeze drifted through the back door, and her remains fragmented and drifted away just as the Chanelas' had.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask exhaled his relief and turned to face Sailor Moon – only to find her nose scrunched and her lips pursed. "Sai-"</p><p>"Did you seriously wait until that thing was about to cut me in half to show up and help?" she asked, her voice all accusation.</p><p>"I-"</p><p>"And you did that the other day, too, at the Shapelin Gym, didn't you?"</p><p>His mouth went dry as he fumbled for words. He didn't have powerful offensive magic, like she did, or the ability to heal people. All he had was the element of surprise. Without that, how was he supposed to protect her?</p><p>"If you'd actually followed the plan like you were supposed to, you wouldn't have needed rescuing!" The angry words burst forth instead, mostly because blaming her wasn't nearly so scary as the thoughts he was currently working to barricade in a tiny corner of his mind.</p><p>"We're supposed to be teammates!" she retorted. "What kind of teammate almost lets his partner get filleted by a dinosaur?!"</p><p>"I got here in time, didn't I? I would never have let her actually hurt you!"</p><p>Usagi's mouth dropped open, her eyebrows furrowed, but a loudly cleared throat interrupted whatever rebuttal she had planned to throw at him.</p><p>Two sets of blue eyes swiveled, and for the first time Tuxedo Mask looked beyond Usagi's face to take in the purple-black cat that was settled on Sailor Moon's shoulder, claws curled just-slightly into the shoulder of her fuku.</p><p>"So, I take it you're Tuxedo Mask," the cat said, and he blinked behind his mask.</p><p>
  <em>Was this the blur that had helped Sailor Moon in the fight?</em>
</p><p>"Sailor Moon," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Did you know that cat could talk?"</p><p>Sailor Moon threw the cat a reproachful look before gesturing between them with her gloved hand. "Tuxedo Mask, Luna. Luna, Tuxedo Mask. Luna is my guardian sent by the Moon Kingdom, and Tuxedo Mask is my…"</p><p>The way she trailed off made his stomach curl in on itself.</p><p>"Well, he helps," she finally said, digging her fingers into her hips.</p><p>"Tuxedo Mask," the cat said, drawing out his name like the words were unfamiliar. "Are you an ally to the Moon Kingdom?"</p><p>He looked back and forth between blue and red eyes as the silence dragged. "...I don't know," he finally said, his wish for proper memories a familiar ache.</p><hr/><p>Sailor Moon wrapped her hand around her cat's shoulders with an overdone smile. "And that's just fine, right Luna?" She'd expected nothing less than a full-on inquisition from her guardian, but she hadn't been prepared for the way her own loss for words would send her heart ricocheting through her chest.</p><p>She knew Luna already suspected what she felt for the dashing vigilante, even if Luna had no idea of the masked man's real identity, but trying to describe what Tuxedo Mask was to her in front of Mamoru… It was awkward and vaguely impossible.</p><p>"I don't worry much about the past," Tuxedo Mask continued. "I just know this is what I'm supposed to be doing now. I'm meant to help Sailor Moon, and so I'm going to. Whether that makes me an ally or an enemy of the Moon Kingdom doesn't matter to me."</p><p>Sailor Moon's head jerked to stare at him as her pounding heart swooped in her chest. She knew rationally he meant in a strictly platonic way, but he'd basically just said he'd follow her wherever she would go, right? A lesser woman would have swooned – as it was, she was pretty sure she could feel little hearts spontaneously appearing around her head.</p><p>Pushing away the intrusive thoughts, Sailor Moon tried to bring her attention back to the moment. Luna and Mamoru were still silently appraising each other, leaving the moon senshi with little to do but shift from one booted foot to the other. Crossing her arms, she looked around the pet shop and realized that the clutter of the storeroom had melted away into an empty warehouse as they'd been talking.</p><p>Not ready to think too hard about how the Dark Kingdom set up their evil operations, she looked back between Tuxedo Mask and her pet instead, ready to break the silence herself if she had to.</p><p>However, as she looked between them, Luna looked up and met Usagi's eyes, one feline eyebrow arching up slightly. "Okay," the cat said slowly, turning her focus back to Tuxedo Mask. "I guess… welcome to the team, then.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Woo, the team is getting stronger (and maybe so is the denial?) I'd love to hear what you thought!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Call it Cupidity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well... this has been a fun week, huh? Hopefully this new chapter brings you a little levity in a tough time. Please make sure you're staying hydrated and performing whatever self-care that leaves you feeling most supported and energized.</p><p> </p><p>Thank you, forever and always, to my amazing beta, FloraOne, who is wonderful and supportive and her suggestions helped tremendously with both the tension and the emotional payoff in this chapter.</p><p>As always, comments are love, and I'd love to hear from you!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rapping her knuckles against the already-familiar green door, Usagi bounced on her toes as she waited for Mamoru to answer. She couldn't help her giddy grin when the door cracked open and she found herself peering through the gap and into the concealed eyes of Tuxedo Mask.</p><p>"Oh," he said, looking her up and down in a way that made her tingle slightly. "Is Luna not coming today?"</p><p>When she shook her head, indicating there was no chance of his identity being blown, his tuxedo melted into powder blue sweatpants and a rolled-sleeve t-shirt, revealing Mamoru beneath the superhero. He pulled the door the rest of the way open, and she stepped into his genkan.</p><p>"Okay, seriously, Mamoru, where do you <em>find </em>these clothes?" she asked, gawking at the truly terrible work-out shirt he was wearing – it appeared to be some kind of yellow and aqua hoodie, but with all the excess fabric rolled in on itself, and a grey vest set overtop it for no discernible reason.</p><p>"What's wrong with my clothes?" he said, scrubbing his hand through his hair as he looked down at his outfit.</p><p>She shook her head, shrugging off her jacket to reveal her own workout clothes – stretchy leggings and a slightly-too-big red top over a sports bra – and said as kindly as she could "Nothing, Mamoru. We're just working out."</p><p>He still looked suspicious but stepped into the living room, gesturing for her to follow with his head. She paused in the genkan to swap her shoes for the pink slippers he'd bought for her, then stepped up into Mamoru's apartment.</p><p>As usual, it was obnoxiously pristine and he'd pushed all his furniture to the edges of the small apartment to make space in the middle for them to spar.</p><p>Usagi dumped her bag on the coffee table, next to the stockpile of snacks he always seemed to have out – umaibo and pocky and hi-chews, even cat treats for Luna – and then pulled a cassette tape out of her bag, her eyes sparkling with excitement.</p><p>"Look!" she said. "I brought music!"</p><p>Umino had recently taken Naru on a date to a jazz concert, and all three of them had been listening to the tape ever since. <em>Take that, Sayuri.</em></p><p>Mamoru took the tape from her with a broad smile that set her stomach flip-flopping. "Oh, Amade Yusuke. Yes, he's excellent," he agreed, and Usagi's mouth compressed into a pout.</p><p>"Mannn, I was excited to introduce you to something sophisticated."</p>
<hr/><p>Mamoru chuckled as he slapped the cassette into the tape player by his bed. "Sorry, Usagi, what I <em>meant</em> to say was 'Amade Yusuke? I've never heard of him, is he any good?'"</p><p>She rolled her eyes but her mouth quirked up, which made him smile goofily back. "Why would I bring a tape over here that wasn't any good, baka?" she sassed, sticking out her tongue at him.</p><p>"Touché," he said as he hit the play button and jazzy piano streamed out of the speakers.</p><p>With everything situated, Mamoru stepped to the center of the room and took a fighting stance, gesturing with one hand for Usagi to advance on him. She slipped into Sailor Moon's signature pose – over the last few weeks he'd noticed she sometimes mimicked the heroine's gestures unconsciously – before charging.</p><p>He easily caught her forearm in his palm, and his fingers tightened imperceptibly around her wrist. He wondered if there would ever be a time when his hand on her skin didn't send a fission of electricity down his spine – if so, he hoped it would happen soon. This was supposed to be an innocent sparring match, and he was pretty sure the thoughts he was currently having about her would send her running if she knew about them.</p><p>Pushing the visions of her bare salty skin to the back of his mind, Mamoru focused instead on trying to trip up the woman in his arms; after all, if he could find a weakness, so could the enemy.</p><p>Thirty minutes later, the two sat side by side on the floor, out of breath and drinking water. Usagi grabbed a roll of mango hi-chews off the table and unwrapped them, offering him a piece before systematically devouring the rest of the pack.</p><p>Shaking his head fondly, he climbed to his feet and offered her a hand up, glancing through his balcony doors as she took it.</p><p>Rain spattered against the glass, coming down in sheets unusually thick for April. "You didn't bring an umbrella, did you?" he asked, trying to keep the tone conversational, and watched her wince knowingly.</p><p>"C'mon," he said, leading her to the genkan, where he picked up his keys from the top of the cabinet. "I'll drive you home."</p>
<hr/><p>She hadn't thought that there was anything that could make Mamoru feel any more out of her league, but that was before she saw his shiny red sports car. <em>Stupid wealthy doctors.</em></p><p>He'd led her down into the parking garage below his building while she'd half-held her breath, too nervous to point out that their fingers were still entwined from when he'd helped her up earlier. Then the nicest car in the lot had lit up and honked, and she'd dropped his hand like it had burned her, kicking herself yet again for secretly holding out hope.</p><p>Opening the passenger door for her, Mamoru didn't seem the slightest bit concerned about getting the leather seats sweaty – why would he be, though, when he basically just glistened – so Usagi slid into the car without drawing his attention to the fact that her workout had left her gross and sticky. She crossed her ankles into a posture she hoped was ladylike as Mamoru climbed in through the driver side door, buckling his seatbelt in a fluid motion.</p><p>He pulled out of the garage and onto the street, turning left and immediately slamming on the brakes as a figure darted out into the street in front of them, narrowly avoiding a collision.</p><p>Usagi was unbuckled and out of the car almost before she knew what she was doing.</p><p>"Oh no, sir, are you okay? What were you doing in the street?!"</p><p>The man ran a hand over his face, sputtering. "I'm so sorry! The monster… I wasn't paying attention."</p><p>Mamoru appeared on her right, and she looked between the two men with big eyes. "What monster?" she asked the man, and Mamoru's eyes widened as well.</p><p>He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I know I sound crazy."</p><p>"No…" Usagi said, looking to Mamoru for reassurance – he was the eloquent one, after all. But Mamoru wasn't paying attention to her. Instead, he was staring at the man intently, before he snapped his fingers.</p><p>"You're Amade Yusuke," he said, and the man ducked his head.</p><p>"Amade Yusuke?!" Usagi repeated with a gasp. "You're amazing! I love your music!"</p><p>"Oh, uh, thank you," he muttered, giving his head a small shake. "But really, I should be going. Between monsters and concerts… Here," he pulled a small card from his wallet, offering it to Usagi. "If there was any damage to your car," he explained, and Usagi flushed to her ears. <em>Did he think…?</em></p><p>"Oh, it's not… we're not…" But Yusuke had already pressed the card into her hand and disappeared down the road, leaving Usagi and Mamoru standing alone in the rain and Usagi's cheeks burning red at the implication.</p><p>"Did he say he was being followed by a monster?" Mamoru asked, utterly unruffled as always.</p><p>Usagi jammed the card into Mamoru's fist in the hopes that getting rid of it would also erase her wish for Yusuke's assumption to come true. "Yeah… I mean, we should probably follow him, huh?"</p>
<hr/><p>Mamoru pocketed the card, carefully keeping his face blank. His heart smarted from the way Usagi had reddened when Amade Yusuke had insinuated they were a couple – he knew without having to ask that he wasn't her type, but he hadn't thought he was so poor a catch that she should be <em>that</em> embarrassed by the assumption!</p><p>"Right," he said, jerking his head back to the car. "I'll park and then we can follow him on foot."</p><p>Usagi shook her head. "No, he'll get away! He's already almost out of sight!" and she tore off after the musician, before Mamoru could at the very least insist she take the umbrella he kept in his back seat.</p><p>Almost twenty minutes later, car parked and umbrella in hand, Mamoru was finally able to slow his jogging when he recognized a bedraggled Usagi standing under a canvas awning, her pigtails dripping wet.</p><p>"Usagi," he chastised, thrusting his umbrella over her head even though she was already protected from the rain by the canopy over her head. "Why would you just run off like that? I could have at least given you my umbrella so you didn't get soaked."</p><p>She shrugged, arms wrapped around her body in a way that appeared to be to stave off a shiver. "We would have lost him."</p><p>"You did lose him," Mamoru pointed out, voice clipped as he tried to figure out the fastest route to get her back to his heated car.</p><p>"Nope," she said, gesturing to the doorway she stood next to with her thumb, a sign next to the door reading <em>Jazz House ALFIE</em>. "He went in here. I was just waiting for you so you didn't get lost."</p><p>Restraining his urge to grab her wrist and bodily drag her inside so she could warm up, he instead placed a hand on her shoulder and gently steered her into the club, pausing only long enough for them to flash their IDs to the staff member just inside the door.</p><p>He deposited her at a table and went to find a waiter and order a pot of hot tea with honey and lemon, coming back to find Usagi watching the pianist with hearts in her eyes. Pressing the irrational jealousy to the very bottom of his belly – why <em>wouldn't </em>Usagi have a crush on a famous jazz musician? – he slid into the booth next to her and crossed his arms against the table.</p><p>"I love this song," Usagi sighed, cheeks cupped in her hands. "It's so romantic."</p><p>"I haven't heard this one before," Mamoru admitted as the waiter set a teapot and two cups down on their table.</p><p>Usagi's hands slid down her face, and she grinned slyly at him through her fingers. "Wait, are you saying I know a song by Amade Yusuke that you don't?"</p><p>Picking up the teapot with a polite bow to the waiter, Mamoru turned his attention back to Usagi with a shrug. "Evidently."</p><p>"It's from his next album," Usagi said knowingly. "Umino and Naru bought the single at his show a few weeks ago. It's called 'A Waltz for Akiko.'" She folded her hands to her chest and released a slow, smiling sigh. "I wonder who Akiko is?"</p><p>Mamoru slid a full cup of tea in front of her, much less interested in speculating about the identity of the musician's muse than Usagi was.</p><p>"She must be someone special," Usagi continued, looking up at Mamoru with big soft eyes. "to inspire something so beautiful."</p><p>The look in her eyes made his throat go completely dry, and he poured himself a cup of tea and took a sip of it just to wash the desire to lean over and kiss her out of his mouth.</p>
<hr/><p>When Mamoru busied himself with the teapot again, Usagi blew out a small breath of disappointment and picked up her own cup of tea. Even if she knew better, the cozy atmosphere of the jazz club and her own optimistic heart were playing tricks on her.</p><p>
  <em>Was it her fault if she wished this was a date?</em>
</p><p>Wistfully, she allowed her eyes to trace Mamoru's jaw. He sat in profile, his attention focused entirely on the performance, so she took the opportunity to linger, to tattoo his features into her heart.</p><p>He was beautiful in the muted light of the flickering tea candles, cobalt eyes as shrouded in mystery as his expressions usually were. Her fingers tightened around her teacup as she remembered how his hand had felt in hers earlier that day, wishing he might reach across the table and twine his fingers with hers again.</p><p>She took a sip that was probably too big and nearly choked on the hot tea. As she reluctantly pulled her attention from the man sitting next to her, she realized Yusuke was already finishing his set, and now stood to take a bow.</p><p>"C'mon," she said to Mamoru as a pretty teal-haired woman carrying a violin stepped onto the dais, "If we sneak backstage, maybe we can talk to him about his monster, find out if it's from the Dark Kingdom."</p><p>Mamoru set a handful of yen down on the table and slid out of the booth to follow her. When a bouncer stepped into their path, stopping them from getting backstage, they left the club and crept around back instead – Mamoru's idea, of course.</p><p>The sound of screams drew them into the below-ground parking garage, horrified to find Yusuke trapped under the heel of a ferocious woman surrounded by a colony of fluttering bats.</p><p>Usagi twisted her head to meet Mamoru's eyes, hoping to convey her plan telepathically, but it wasn't necessary – a rose had already appeared between his fingers. Satisfied, Usagi stepped behind a pillar and threw her hand in the air.</p><p>Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon burst onto the scene from behind the cars. She felt his cape whip away from her legs as he lunged forward, hurling a blood red rose into the fray to separate the hateful woman from the terrified musician. Sailor Moon darted forward and pulled the pianist to safety as Tuxedo Mask used his own body as a barrier, staring down the youma.</p><p>"The tape," Yusuke said, and Sailor Moon swiveled her head to look at him.</p><p>"Amade-san, what are you talking about?"</p><p>"She took the tape, for Akiko."</p><p>Sailor Moon's eyes bugged, and she cried "Tuxedo Mask! You have to get back the tape!"</p><p>However, before either of them could make a move, the woman's skin shed from her body like a snake's, powerful leathery wings erupting from her shoulders with a mighty flap, rocketing her out of the garage and up into the rainy sky.</p><p>Sailor Moon shrieked as the gust swept over them, instinctively throwing up her hands to protect her face. <em>Why did superheroing have to involve so many monsters?!</em></p><p>"We have to follow her!" Yusuke cried, and Sailor Moon shook her head, brought back into the moment.</p><p>"No, no, Amade-san, we'll take care of it. Why don't you go to Akiko? We'll come find you."</p><p>He looked torn, and Tuxedo Mask's voice carried across the deserted lot. "Sailor Moon, we have to hurry."</p><p>She patted the man's shoulders with her gloved hands in a way she hoped was reassuring. "Go to Akiko, okay? We'll get the tape back, I promise."</p><p>With an unmistakable grit of his molars, Yusuke nodded.</p><p>Instantly, Sailor Moon vaulted over a car and across the parking lot, grabbing Tuxedo Mask's hand to pull him after her as the two tore off in pursuit of the monster.</p><p>Leaping from building to building, Sailor Moon panted slightly with each successive bound. She was struggling to match pace with Tuxedo Mask in the heavy rain, but she wasn't about to tell him to slow down and risk losing track of the giant batlike creature – even if she did appear to be on an unmistakable trajectory towards the Jam Records building. Trying to save her breath as they got closer and closer to the building, Sailor Moon also didn't tell Mamoru that there was a green car on the highway below them, beelining straight for the record company.</p>
<hr/><p>One picked-window-lock later, Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon tumbled into the recording studio to find the youma with a woman captive in her arms, long claws pressed to her throat and Amade Yusuke paralyzed on the other side of the hallway, a cassette tape unspooled at his feet.</p><p>"That must be Akiko," hissed Sailor Moon, and Tuxedo Mask tried to remind his stupid heart that this wasn't the time to focus on the way her gloved palm pressed against his own.</p><p>Instead, he conjured a rose from the air, hurling it into the creature's face with a deliberate spin; the bloom stuck petal-first to her eyes.</p><p>As she shrieked and swiped at her face, Amade lunged forward and swept the woman away, pulling her to the floor and out of the monster's reach – but not fast enough to escape a gash cut across his own arm and back.</p><p>"Now, Sailor Moon!"</p><p>But his cry wasn't fast enough – before she could even put her fingers on her tiara, the youma produced an ear-splitting screech and a blast of wind that blew all four of them to the ground. Her wings flapped, raising her into the air before shooting her out of the nearest window with a shattering of glass.</p><p>"C'mon!" Sailor Moon cried, climbing to red-booted feet. "We can't let her get away!"</p><p>Tuxedo Mask leapt to his feet, blindly following his sailor-suited soldier as she dove from the window into a nearby amphitheater.</p><p>Heart in his throat, he narrowly managed to catch her in the air, orienting himself like a cat and landing on his feet just barely in time to save her from an unfortunate collision with the ground.</p><p>She sprang from his arms as the bat-demon shot a subsonic pulse of sound at the two of them; Sailor Moon was knocked off her feet with a cry of pain, and Tuxedo Mask fought the urge to run to her, to check that not one precious hair on her head had been hurt.</p><p>Instead, he snatched up a microphone from a nearby pile of A/V equipment, hurling it at the bat with all his might.</p><p>As he'd suspected, the reverberations of the soundwaves were captured in the microphone, and the nearby subwoofers nearly exploded with the force of the feedback. He clamped his own hands to his ears to block out the sound as the youma howled in pain.</p><p>"Sailor Moon!" he cried, but his reminder was superfluous; already, the glowing disc was in her hands, spinning frenetically as she loosed it at her enemy.</p><p>The sound of the enemy's shrieking as she was vaporized by the tiara would stay with him – but so would the expression on Usagi's face as she caught the tiara again, slapping it back to her forehead with equal parts relief and triumph.</p>
<hr/><p>Mamoru followed her back into the studio in utter silence, but neither of them got far. Just barely out of the lobby, Tuxedo Mask standing on the stairs just behind her, she overheard the echoes of the conversation and pressed her back into the wall, trying to go unnoticed.</p><p>"Yusuke," chided Akiko along with the sounds of ripping fabric, likely to serve as a makeshift bandage. "How could you do that? What if you'd hurt your hand, you might never be able to play the piano again."</p><p>"If anything happened to you," Her heart swelled in her chest as she pictured how Yusuke would take Akiko's hand in his, smoothing his thumb along the back. "I would never play the piano again, anyway."</p><p>Unable to resist, she turned her head to look at Mamoru, eyes tracing his profile under the domino mask he wore. Yusuke would do anything for Akiko – fight for her, die for her.</p><p>Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, and heat rose in her cheeks as she continued to stare. Uninvited thoughts cascaded in her brain, leaving her breathless.</p><p>
  <em>Tuxedo Mask would fight for her… but was that really it? Hadn't the universe brought them together for a reason? Even with all his comparative success, was it really possible for only her to be feeling this way?</em>
</p><p>Apparently oblivious to her observation, Mamoru shifted slightly, shoulders tense, before he pushed away from the wall.</p><p>She snapped her eyes away, afraid to be caught watching him, but couldn't help the way her gaze was immediately drawn back as he began walking down the stairs with a grace she'd never be able to manage.</p><p>Stepping away from the wall, she pressed her lips together, too afraid of the answer to begin to ask the question.</p><p>Instead, she followed him out of the building, through the rain and back across town to the sporty red car he'd parked in a lot in Azabujuban. She still didn't say anything as they detransformed or when he drove her home. She even kept her silence as he let her out of the car in front of her apartment in Mita, his umbrella in her hand, instead just waving goodbye as he pulled away from the curb.</p><p>She managed to hold the question in the quiet of her heart that whole night, and then during the next morning as she played with the four- and six-year-old who she nannied for, all the way until she walked into the Crown and found Mamoru sitting at the counter laughing with Motoki – and then it threatened to beat right out of her chest.</p><p>
  <em>Could Mamoru love her, too? </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>The monotony of a Tuesday on-call at the hospital had been lessened by the fact that Motoki was also spending the day covering a shift at the Crown – but experience had already taught him that nothing could perk up a dreary day quite like the sunshine of Tsukino Usagi charging into the arcade with a big smile on her face and a pocket full of money for snacks.</p><p>Not that he was letting her pay for anything; not so long as he sat at the counter, anyways.</p><p>She climbed onto the stool next to him, cheeks rosy from her jog to the arcade, and swept some hair behind her ear. "Hi," she said, and he slid his plate of fries in front of her.</p><p>"How was babysitting?" he asked, watching with amusement as she rolled her eyes.</p><p>"It's <em>nannying,</em>" she corrected him, popping a french fry in her mouth.</p><p>"Same thing," he said with a smirk, using his coffee cup as a tool to conceal his delight as she wagged a fry at him reproachfully.</p><p>"Nuh-uh! How would you like it if I called what you do 'nursing?'"</p><p>"I find that nurses are deeply underappreciated; you really shouldn't insinuate that the work they do isn't important."</p><p>"Mamoruuuu!" she whined, gently smacking him on the arm. "Has anyone ever told you that you are im-freaking-possible?"</p><p>"And you," he said, leaning over to her just close enough to smell the vanilla of her shampoo, "are far too much fun to wind up."</p><p>Twin spots of pink appeared on her cheekbones and she waved him away from her, crossing her arms against the counter with a pout. "I have no idea why I even hang out with you."</p><p>"The free food," he said knowingly, and she nodded sagely, even as her lips curled up into an unmistakable grin.</p><p>"That does help."</p><p>He lingered at the bar next to her as Motoki prepped her food, cracking jokes when it felt appropriate and pretending it was nothing but instinct when she needed a steadying hand to keep her from falling off her stool.</p><p>Almost half an hour after her arrival, Usagi grabbed a fresh plate of fries and a chocolate shake from Motoki and disappeared into the maze of game consoles to beat her high score on the Sailor V game, leaving Mamoru smiling wistfully after her.</p><p>As she scampered into the machines, Motoki threw Mamoru a suggestive look. He wiped his hands on his black-and-white checked towel with a humming sound, then drawled, in a voice low and mocking, "I see you got over that girl you work with."</p><p>He blinked, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to make sense of Motoki's non-sequitur. "What… what are you talking about?"</p><p>Motoki smirked, his eyes following Mamoru's gaze into the main arcade floor. "You and Usa."</p><p>Mamoru jerked his head back to gape at Motoki, looked down at his hands, and then blinked up at Motoki again. "Excuse me?"</p><p>"You and Usa," Motoki repeated, slower. "You guys have been dating for the last couple of weeks, right?"</p><p>"No… we're just friends."</p><p>"Really?" Motoki's eyebrows shot up so high that they disappeared under his hairline. "You walk her home every day, you buy her milkshakes, and I definitely saw you grab her hand under the counter earlier. Do you do that with all your friends?" He leaned into the counter with a smug smile and sardonic tone. "Should I be jealous I'm not getting the full treatment?"</p><p>"I-" But his friend's smirk was arch, and Mamoru's stomach collapsed into his toes.</p><p>Try as he might, he couldn't even explain it away – he wanted to buy her pets, made sure he kept his home stocked with her favorite foods, spent far too much time fantasizing about her lips.</p><p>He wasn't just her teammate.</p><p>He never had been, and he never could be.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>YES, our bean of a boy has FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT. One chapter and the epilogue left to go! I hope you enjoyed, and please leave a comment if you did!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welcome to the final full chapter of TDK! This story has been a pleasure to write, and I've been blown away by the amount of love and support I've received around this story. I appreciate you all so much, especially if you've taken the time to comment, favorite, follow, or reblog!</p>
<p>Big thank you to By-Any-Other-Pen and PurpleSuperSiren for hosting the holiday exchange and making this story (and a bunch of others!) possible.</p>
<p>Forever thanks to my wonderful beta, FloraOne, for her support, detailed feedback, and great ideas!</p>
<p>Rogue, I hope you've enjoyed my AU take on season one! I loved your prompts and had so much fun writing for you!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When his feet settled in the genkan of his apartment, he realized with a jolt that he had no memory of the walk home – he had apparently left the Crown and made it home in a total fugue state after Motoki's unexpected revelation.</p>
<p>
  <em>Motoki's…</em>
</p>
<p>He dug all ten fingers into his hair, blowing out a huge breath and wishing he could also exhale the knowledge that he had <em>somehow started dating Usagi without even realizing it</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>When had it happened? Why hadn't she stopped him? How in the world was he ever going to face her again, now that he knew?</em>
</p>
<p>His hands trailed down his face as memories bloomed behind his eyelids – teasingly holding the milkshake he bought her everyday over her head and pretending he'd ordered it for himself and wasn't going to share, the way his fingers sometimes lingered just a second too long on her hips when they were mock-fighting in his living room, how he unconsciously reached for her hand when he needed reassurance.</p>
<p>
  <em>He thought he had more control over himself than this.</em>
</p>
<p>On his bedside shelves, his phone began to ring – probably Motoki, checking to make sure he'd made it home okay.</p>
<p>Mamoru ignored it. He had more important things to worry about right now.</p>
<p>Such as, what was he supposed to say the next time Sailor Moon summoned him to a battle? <em>You're great and all, but I'm in love with your alter ego so maybe us fighting evil together isn't the best idea?</em></p>
<p>But was there another option? She didn't think about him like that, and forcing his unwelcome feelings on her would only get someone hurt in the long run. Be it further bruising his own stupid heart, not rescuing a civilian in time because he couldn't see anything but her, or worst of all, failing to properly protect her because he lost the ability to think rationally… There was no good that could come from continuing their association – better to end it now.</p>
<p>As he reached this logical, painful conclusion, a loud thumping began to sound on the other side of his door, and he dug his teeth into his bottom lip.</p>
<p>He should have known it was only a matter of time before she would show up; he just hadn't expected it to be so soon.</p>
<p>But the pounding on his door could only be her – Motoki would have assumed when he failed to pick up the phone that he didn't want to be disturbed – and he wasn't ready to face her.</p>
<p>He wasn't sure he ever would be.</p>
<p>"Mamoru!" her voice echoed through the green-painted wood. "Are you okay? You left without saying goodbye!"</p>
<p>He stepped down into the genkan, flattening his palm on the door in the hopes that he might be able to feel hers pressed against the other side. He felt nothing but wood panel, and his stomach sank.</p>
<p>"I wasn't feeling well," he said, which wasn't technically a lie.</p>
<p>"Oh," she said, voice muffled by the door. "Should I run down to the Conbini and get medicine for you…? No, that's silly. You probably already have all the medicine. What about soup? I can bring you some hot ramen?"</p>
<p>"I don't need anything, thanks." His voice was cutting, sharp in a way he hadn't managed since his loneliest teenage days, before Motoki had forced his way in. It took even his breath away, and he closed his eyes as he imagined the pain it had surely caused her to hear.</p>
<p>He waited by the door a minute longer, hoping to at least catch the sound of her dejected footsteps walking away and cringing at his own pathetic neediness.</p>
<p>He finally curled his hand into a fist and moved to step out of the genkan – only to be interrupted by a single knock, timid in a way that wrung his heart.</p>
<p>"Mamoru," her quiet voice came through the door again. "If you're not feeling well, I want to help. That's part of being friends."</p>
<p>He felt his heart and his stomach melt together somewhere inside his abdomen, turning into a horrible gooey mass of regret and wanting. His hand trailed out involuntarily, fingers curling around the doorknob.</p>
<p>"I don't want your help," he said, wondering if she could hear the lie in his words.</p>
<p>"Tough," she said, voice tinged with hurt but also with growing annoyance. "I'm not leaving you home sick all by yourself, so you may as well let me in to check on you or I'm gonna stay here all night and annoy all your neighbors."</p>
<p>He twisted the knob, pulling the door open, enough that she could see him but not enough to let her into the apartment. "Here, see," he said, keeping his voice flat. "I'm fine. You can go now."</p>
<p>"Would you stop that?" she snapped, using her whole weight to shove the door the rest of the way open. "I get that you're not feeling well, but that's no reason to avoid me."</p>
<p>He stepped to the side of the genkan, consciously using his body as a blockade between her and her slippers. He couldn't bring himself to look at her, so he dug his hands into his pockets, feigning interest in the baseboard molding that ran along his walls. "I'm not avoiding you. I just have nothing to say to you."</p>
<p>He saw her recoil out of the corner of his eye, and the sight made his intestines tangle in a knot. "What happened to teammates?" Her voice was breathy, stunned.</p>
<p><em>This was better,</em> he reminded himself, <em>no matter how much it hurt right now</em>.</p>
<p>He swallowed, hard, as he finally looked directly into her shining blue eyes, hoping that she couldn't see right through him, wouldn't be able to divine the true meaning of his words.</p>
<p>"I don't want to be your teammate."</p>
<hr/>
<p>His cold delivery crushed her. His eyes were hard, and she could sense that his words were painfully true.</p>
<p>
  <em>He didn't love her. He didn't even want to be </em>
  <em>
    <strong>friends </strong>
  </em>
  <em>with her.</em>
</p>
<p>"But you said…" She felt the tears pricking her lashes and she clamped down on her emotions like a vice. <em>She would </em><em><strong>not</strong></em><em> let him see her cry</em>. "You said that you would protect Sailor Moon no matter what?"</p>
<p>"I'll still protect Sailor Moon. That doesn't mean we have to see each other outside of battles."</p>
<p>Staring helplessly at him, her mind flooded with all the time they'd spent together over the last month – laughing with him at the counter of the Crown as he threatened to withhold her daily milkshake, late-night phone calls discussing the Dark Kingdom that devolved into sharing their days instead, wrestling with him in his living room and trying to pretend that was all she wanted to do with him – moments that she'd treasured.</p>
<p><em>Moments that hadn't meant anything to him</em>.</p>
<p>"Oh. O-okay. I get it. I'm… sorry to have bothered you." Her throat felt so tight she was almost shocked she'd managed to get the words out, but at least she had. She could leave with her dignity now.</p>
<p>Turning, she stepped out of the genkan and into the hallway, letting the door snick closed behind her.</p>
<p>She somehow managed to hold back her tears until she stepped out of the elevator on the first floor of the building.</p>
<p>Three days passed, and Usagi called out of work yet again. She wasn't in the mood to dance for tourists, sell shiny baubles to happy couples, or make coffee for hopeful people going out on their first date. She'd barely poked her head out from under her comforter at all, other than to fumble for the cordless phone or sign for takeout at the door. Empty food containers littered her bedroom floor, and she was pretty sure she had started to smell like the inside of the duck mascot costume.</p>
<p>She was just glad that the Dark Kingdom was being oddly respectful of her emotional devastation and hadn't forced her to come face-to-face with Tuxedo Mask again yet – surely once she'd eaten enough junk food then her heart would stop bleeding whenever she thought about Mamoru.</p>
<p>She reached out of her blanket cocoon to blindly grope for the phone, dialing the familiar number. "Yes, hi, this is Tsukino Usagi. Can I get four taiyaki for delivery? One custard, one chocolate custard, and two red bean paste? Uh-huh. Twenty minutes? Great, thank you."</p>
<p>She set the phone back down on the floor and then squawked when something landed on her back. Ripping her bunnies-and-moons comforter from her head, she found Luna sitting on the bed next to her, giving her an appraising look.</p>
<p>"Usagi, I understand that you and Mamoru broke up, but wallowing like this is not healthy. You really need to keep living your life, plus there's the mission to think of."</p>
<p>Usagi blinked at her cat before shaking her head and tugging on her ear to clear it. "I'm sorry, Luna, what did you just say?"</p>
<p>"Wallowing like this just because you and Mamoru broke up is not healthy. You should go take a shower and get on with your life."</p>
<p>"Whaaaaat? Luna, did you get into the catnip or something? Mamoru and I were never dating."</p>
<p>
  <em>He'd made the fact that he didn't want her perfectly clear.</em>
</p>
<p>"You don't have to lie to me, Usagi," the cat said in a soothing tone. "Obviously I was concerned about the mission when you two first got together, but you're both adults and I trust the fact that you and Mamoru broke up will not impede Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask's ability to work together."</p>
<p>"Ugh, Luna, we were so careful about hiding his identity, how did you figure that out?!"</p>
<p>"Well, his name is written next to the doorbell, for one thing."</p>
<p>Usagi settled back into her blanket nest, grumbling about meddlesome pets, and Luna pressed on.</p>
<p>"Don't get me wrong, I was concerned at first that a relationship between Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask would only bring about destruction, but when I saw how much Mamoru clearly adores you, I realized there was no use in trying to fight it."</p>
<p>"Mamoru… adores…?" She forced a laugh, mostly to expel the stupid butterflies that she'd been sure were dead but had somehow managed to reanimate in her belly at Luna's words. "Luna, stop kidding around, it's not funny!"</p>
<p>"I'm not joking, Usagi. You should see how that boy looks at you when he thinks no one is paying attention. If it wasn't so cute, it would be sickening."</p>
<p>Her heart lurched and she caught her breath. "No way," she said, and the cat rolled her eyes.</p>
<p>"I can't tell you how to manage your personal life, Usa," Luna continued primly, "But whatever happened between the two of you must have been some kind of misunderstanding. I can't imagine he would have broken up with you otherwise."</p>
<p>Cogs were turning in Usagi's brain, each time catching on that exact question and spinning out. <em>If Luna was right, if he did like her back, then why push her away…?</em></p>
<p>Heart racing, she swapped her shoes in the genkan and ran to the door, throwing it open to reveal Eiji, her usual delivery guy, one hand posed to knock on the door.</p>
<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed, shaking her head slightly and looking down at the paper bag of delivery taiyaki that Eiji was holding. "One sec," she said, fumbling with her wallet, sitting half-open on the genkan table, before swapping the bag for a handful of yen. "Great to see you, Eiji!" she called, bowing and closing the door on him.</p>
<p>She stood in the genkan, staring down into the bag of taiyaki and wondering if it was a sign that running to Mamoru now was a mistake.</p>
<p>"Usagi, are you going somewhere? Why are you wearing shoes with your pajamas?"</p>
<p>She looked up at her roommate, and then down again, this time taking in her heart-print pink pajamas and the sneakers she'd jammed her feet into before Eiji had shown up.</p>
<p>
  <em>She should probably at least put the taiyaki in the fridge first. And maybe take a shower, too?</em>
</p>
<p>An hour later, changed out of her moping pajamas and with clean hair, Sailor Moon settled the heels of her boots on Chiba Mamoru's balcony, dropping to a low crouch.</p>
<p>Pressing her hand to the huge glass door, she watched Mamoru sitting on his couch, apparently reading something intently in the lamplight. Her heart fluttered just looking at him, and she pressed her lips together to hold in her sigh. <em>If Luna was wrong…</em></p>
<p>Conjuring all her superhero stealth – not that she'd ever had much – she pushed the sliding glass door open with only the faintest of squeaks.</p>
<p>No one but a superhero would have heard it, so of course Mamoru snapped to attention the moment she slid her leg into the apartment.</p>
<p>He gawked at her from behind his reading glasses, the medical journal falling to his lap as his bare feet dropped from his coffee table to the floor. "Usa-"</p>
<p>She slowly rose to her feet, eyes wide and heart full of hope.</p>
<p>"I don't want to be teammates, either. I never did." The words burst out of her in a rush, her heart squeezing in a silent prayer that she'd gotten this right, that he'd meant what she hoped he had by this.</p>
<p>That he'd meant what <em>she</em> meant.</p>
<hr/>
<p>It had been a miserable three days without her, and even now the only thing stopping him from dismissing her presence in his apartment as but a figment of his lonely mind was that it was Sailor Moon who stood before him, not Usagi.</p>
<p>"Wha-what are you doing here?" His heart squeezed uncomfortably, brain churning, trying to catch up to the reality that she was here, standing in his apartment again, days after he'd pushed her away. "Was there a youma attack? I didn't feel you transform…" His eyes went wide and he sat up tall on the couch. "Are you hurt?"</p>
<p>But she shook her head. "I'm testing a theory."</p>
<p>Her azure eyes were wide, almost scared, but there was a crease of determination in her forehead that only appeared just before she dusted a particularly intimidating youma – or maybe it was an illusion created by her fuku.</p>
<p>He stared at her, relief that she wasn't hurt diffusing through his limbs, only to be rapidly replaced with a hum of confusion. <em>If she wasn't hurt, then why was she here?</em></p>
<p>"What theory?"</p>
<p>She pressed her lips together, rocking from her heels to her toes. "I don't want to be your teammate," she repeated slowly, and his eyebrows furrowed.</p>
<p>"I told you before, I'm not a person who has friends."</p>
<p>"Yes, you are."</p>
<p>His eyes flicked up and he arched one eyebrow at her in challenge; it was the only alternative to letting her see how her words had hit him, settling in his gut and marinating there. "And I don't want to be your friend."</p>
<p>"Okay." She used her leg to slide the coffee table away from the couch before plopping onto the table in front of him, looking up to meet his eyes; instinctively, he looked away.</p>
<p>
  <em>Looking right at her right now felt too much like staring into an eclipse. </em>
</p>
<p>"I don't want to be your friend, either." Her voice was quiet, but firm – beyond argument. So, he didn't argue. Not that point, anyway.</p>
<p>"I can't…" Pressing fingers and lips together in the hopes it might quell the pounding of his heart, he finally looked up at her.</p>
<p>She was staring right back at him, eyes somehow guarded and vulnerable all at once.</p>
<p>"I'm beholden to some mythical princess I've never met."</p>
<p>She raised both shoulders to her ears, ruffling her pigtails. "I'm not a hundred percent sure what 'beholden' means, but based on what Luna says about the Moon Kingdom I'm pretty sure I am, too."</p>
<p>He could tell he was beginning to mentally grope, to flail for any excuse – there had to be some way to make her see that this wasn't the good idea that his rapidly beating heart wanted to convince him that it was. "You could get hurt."</p>
<p>With a hard blink, her eyes began to shine, and he had to look away from her face again – instead, his gaze trailed down to watch her chest compress, as though she'd just released an enormous exhale.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Says the guy who's saved my butt I don't know <em>how </em>many times in the last month? You wouldn't let me get hurt."</p>
<p>"Someone else could get hurt." There was that sharpness again, the bite of loneliness that told him to shove her away before she could make the decision to leave on her own.</p>
<p>In contrast to his harsh tone, her voice was quiet, usually thoughtful. "Someone else…" Her fingers momentarily floated up in the space between them before she withdrew, settling them in her lap instead. "I won't let you get hurt, either."</p>
<p>"That's not what I meant."</p>
<p>"What <em>did </em>you mean, Mamo-chan?"</p>
<p>His eyes went wide and jerked up to meet hers. She was still seated on the table in front of him, tiara sparkling in the dim light to match her eyes, her smile nervous but real.</p>
<p>"You deserve somebody who doesn't… who isn't…You deserve <em>better</em>."</p>
<p>"Better?" She snorted, crossing her arms; this time it was her staring at him in challenge. "I don't know how you've missed this, but I'm a hot mess! <em>You</em> should be with someone special, some gorgeous, sophisticated surgeon, not…" She trailed off, all humor disappearing from her tone. Her unspoken self-condemnation reverberated through him: <em>Not someone like me.</em></p>
<p>"How could you even think that?" he spluttered, recoiling off the couch. After one round of pacing, he came to stand behind it instead, hands resting on the back of the sofa as he stared at her, struggling to reconcile how utterly consequential she was with the idea that <em>she could possibly not know. </em></p>
<p>"How could <em>you</em>?!" she fired back, pressing her palms into the wood of the table and leaning forward to scrunch her nose at him.</p>
<p>The accusation in her eyes stopped him short, forced him into a corner of honesty he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. Trapped, he pressed on, only hoping he wasn't bricking himself in further.</p>
<p>"I've never met anyone like you before."</p>
<p>She hugged her arms over her chest and rose to a stand, shifting from one foot to the other in a way that drew his eyes to the pale skin between her red boots and tiny blue skirt.</p>
<p>He shook his head, forcing his eyes up to her face again, to the blue of her eyes and the anxiety in their depths. "You say you're a mess-"</p>
<p>"Hello, you've met me, right?" she said, in a self-deprecating tone that chilled him to his core, forcing him to either press on or let his heart simply break in two.</p>
<p>"-but that's not what I see. I see someone who's passionate-"</p>
<p>"About naps, maybe."</p>
<p>He shook his head to dismiss her grumbling, stepping around the couch and slowly closing the space between them as he continued. "-unwilling to settle, who makes everyone around her feel valued and important."</p>
<p>At this she fell silent, though glossy lips remained parted, as though she wanted to object but couldn't find the words.</p>
<p>He stepped into the space in front of her, between Sailor Moon's red boots and the creamy cushions of his couch, and looked down into eyes that shone with a myriad of emotions – the same ones churning in the depths of his belly.</p>
<p>"And maybe you forget your wallet sometimes but you surround yourself with people who love you, who are loyal to you and won't let you fall. That's an amazing thing, Usako."</p>
<p>It was her turn to jump, to go wide-eyed at his words, and she stuttered slightly as she rambled. "B-but you're a doctor, and you make up haikus on the spot, and you have a sports car and…" He swallowed, hard, as he reclaimed his seat on the couch, not wanting to tower over her as she sang his misguided praises. "...well, okay, atrocious fashion sense, but you're like the smartest, most together guy I've ever met-"</p>
<p>"I had to be," he interrupted her, pressing the flats of his palms together. He shifted against the cushions of the couch in an effort to dispel the nervous tension from his back, looking up again to meet her eyes.</p>
<p>He avoided discussing his past on principle, but he'd rather he be uncomfortable than for her to have that look in her eyes, that self-doubt that shouldn't belong to someone like her.</p>
<p>"I had to be studious, together, hardworking." He trained his eyes out the window behind her, seeing her slowly sink back down to sit on the table only out of the corner of his eye. "No one was going to look out for me but me. Without that, I would have been just another orphan lost in the system." Stubbornly, he focused on his breathing and the glittering lights of Tokyo Tower – anything other than her.</p>
<p>He would allow himself to be uncomfortable for her, but he didn't need her pity, didn't want to see it. Instead, he cleared his throat and set his jaw. "It's not impressive when it's a coping mechanism."</p>
<p>"Who says?!" She hopped right back to her feet, jaw dropping and planting her fists on her hips. "Who gets to decide what is and isn't impressive?"</p>
<p>He turned his head slightly, retraining his view from the glow of the tower to look instead at eyes that shimmered with irritation – anger on his behalf.</p>
<p>She blew out an angry breath, shaking her head as she once again sank back down to her seat on the table.</p>
<p>"And how exactly does being an orphan make you 'less impressive'?" She demanded, eyebrows furrowed. "You survived stuff I can't even imagine. You're not somehow <em>less </em>for that, you're even stronger than I thought you were."</p>
<p>He shook his head – <em>you must have me confused with someone else</em> – and in reply she finally reached out, taking one of his hands into her gloved ones and wrapping her fingers around his.</p>
<p>"Mamo-chan… I understand that you've maybe been alone for a long time, but I want to be there for you, whether that's as teammates or friends or…" She shook her head. "Whatever you're comfortable with."</p>
<p>He nearly jolted out of his skin when her fingers tangled with his. True, he'd developed the unfortunate habit of unconsciously taking her hand over the last few weeks but… He stared down at their intertwined digits, throat growing tight. <em>He'd never thought she wanted that, too.</em></p>
<p>"The moment I first saw you, I already liked you. I wanted to meet you, because I knew you were supposed to matter to me."</p>
<p>She tilted her head slightly, trying to catch his eyes with her own – hardly a challenge. His entire being was fixated on her, the feel of her fingers, the sight of their hands wrapped together. The moment her sky-blue eyes met his, he was powerless to look away.</p>
<p>"And yeah, you're Tuxedo Mask, but I don't really think that's why." She squeezed his hand tightly in hers, running her thumb along the creases of his palm.</p>
<p>His inhale was trembling, his fingers unconsciously tightening around hers.</p>
<p>"Every little thing I've learned about you since then has only made me like you more. I like you <em>so much</em>." Her voice was as earnest as her eyes, and it took his breath away. "I'm not smart like you, so I don't get to be right a lot, but you've turned out to be even more amazing than I ever thought you could be."</p>
<p>He shook his head, not sure if the feeling blooming in his chest at her words was relief or incredulity, or some insane combination of the two that threatened to overwhelm his heart completely. Instead of worrying about that, he decided to focus on the feel of Usagi's fingers between his own; he gently turned her palm over and smoothed his own thumb along the back of her cloth-covered hand. "You're smart," he said. "Your emotional intelligence is through the roof. There's more to smarts than just school, Usako."</p>
<p>Her expression was wry, eyes twinkling. "Tell that to my mother."</p>
<p>His mouth morphed into a desert, heartbeat ratcheting up. <em>Her mother.</em></p>
<p>He'd never met anybody's mother before. Not even Motoki's mother.</p>
<p>His grip on her hand tightened inexorably, and she squeezed back.</p>
<p>"It's okay, you don't have to meet her," she said, voice soothing, her eyes warm; he shook his head in response.</p>
<p><em>Her mother. Usagi's mother.</em> His brain was spinning out, his voice caught somewhere in his chest, fumbling to break out in a series of dysregulated choking sounds.</p>
<p>"D-do you want me to meet her?" he finally managed to rasp out.</p>
<p>She snorted, brushing her hair back with her free hand. "Let's maybe take this one step at a time," she said, expression morphing into an impish smile as her tone turned teasing. "Like, you should probably at least kiss me before you meet my mother."</p>
<p>His mouth somehow became even drier, his entire being narrowing in to focus on her lips. "Do you want me to kiss you?"</p>
<p>Her smile widened as she leaned in close, but before their lips could meet, he held up a hand. "Wait."</p>
<p>She froze and leaned back, a sheen forming over her eyes, and he reached up to gently trace his fingers along her cheekbone. "Sailor Moon is great and all," he said, weighing his words carefully as his fingertips trailed down her jawbone, "But I'd really like to kiss Usagi."</p>
<p>The shine of her eyes melted away into a bright smile, similar to the one he'd seen the first time he ran into her in civilian form at the Crown.</p>
<p>In a blur of ribbons and glitter, Sailor Moon vanished, leaving a blonde in a pink button-down and denim miniskirt sitting on his coffee table. His ears burned, his cheeks going hot, and she grinned mischievously at him.</p>
<p>"Hi," she said, her voice low and teasing as he leaned in, twining his fingers in her hair and finally, finally closing the gap between them.</p>
<p>Her lips were warm, soft to the touch of his own – for about a second, before she buried her fists in his hair and dragged him to her, crushing their mouths together tongue-first. He clung back, pressing her to him as he sighed into her mouth.</p>
<p>After a moment – or perhaps a few, who was counting – they parted reluctantly; his hair mussed, mouth kiss-bruised as his eyes fluttered open again, finding her disheveled and smiling, fingers curled in his collar.</p>
<p>"Hi."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've been ruminating a lot these last few weeks on how hard it can be for us to see our own worth when we have to live with our flaws 24/7, and how sometimes we need somebody else to serve as a mirror and show us the good about ourselves that we've learned to diminish or overlook. SO that idea kind of snuck into this story without really being planned? I think it works, and I hope y'all like it too :)</p>
<p>There will be a short final epilogue, but this concludes the main plot!</p>
<p>As always, I'd love to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Usagi blinked open sleepy eyes, reaching out in the bed and seeking the warmth of Mamoru. After the mayhem of yesterday's battle – a new shittenou appearing, the senshi narrowly avoiding being crushed in a bubble of darkness, Zoisite almost killing Mamoru – they'd clung to each other for comfort, for reassurance. She'd needed to <em>know</em> that he was safe, to feel the motion of his breaths with her own fingers until she faded into sleep.</p><p>She now found the sheets next to her empty and mock-pouted – Mamoru always seemed to wake before her, but at least her lack of morning cuddles meant that there would be breakfast ready. She could already smell the scent of dashi in the air, mingled with Mamoru's morning dark roast.</p><p>With a soft smile, she yawned and stretched, but before she could sit up in the bed she heard static coming from behind her, and the sound of a familiar mocking voice. <em>Zoisite.</em></p><p>She sat up instantly, spinning under the covers to find Mamoru, breakfast in hand, standing in the middle of his apartment facing the TV set. His eyes slid over to her, then back to the screen, lit with an eerie glow.</p><p>"I suggest a battle between the two of us for the rainbow crystals, with the winner taking all," Zoisite's voice was saying, and Usagi stared at Mamoru, shaking her head vehemently.</p><p>"All right," Mamoru said, keeping his gaze trained on the television, "that sounds fair."</p><p>"Excellent. The Starlight Tower, then? Today at 5pm. See you then, Mamoru!"</p><p>The TV fizzed off, and Usagi leapt from the bed with a cry.</p><p>"How does he know who you are? How did he find you? Why are you going to fight him?" she exclaimed, and Mamoru wrapped one arm around her waist, balancing the bowl of rice in his other hand.</p><p>"Because we need the rest of the crystals," Mamoru said, voice low and soothing as he rubbed her back. "And because if he knows who I am, it's only a matter of time before he finds out who you are. Thank god I keep the TV angled away from the bed."</p><p>She tried to force a smile, but she could tell her mouth didn't turn up into anything remotely convincing. "It's a trap, it has to be. He would never give us those crystals."</p><p>"That's why we're going to bring backup," he said, smoothing his thumb over her cheek. "We have until 5pm. Let's get you fed, and then we'll go rally the girls and make our plan. This is the endgame, right? Once we find the Moon Princess, she'll defeat the Dark Kingdom and we can go back to just being Usagi and Mamoru again."</p><p>This time, her smile was real. "I dunno about that, I think I might miss Tuxedo Mask."</p><p>He snorted, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead before setting the food on the coffee table. "Eat," he said, stepping back to his kitchenette to grab the rest of the side dishes. "I have a feeling today is going to be an important day, and we're both going to need strength to get through it."</p><p>She sank down next to the table, picking up the Sailor Moon chopsticks that Mamoru had insisted on buying for her, even though she'd told him she wanted the Tuxedo Mask ones.</p><p>"Hey, Mamo-chan," she said, her voice quiet and her heart a hummingbird in her ribcage.</p><p>"Yeah, Usako?"</p><p>"I love you."</p><p>His smile was serene, fingers tangling with hers as he sat down next to her and crossed his socked feet. "I love you, too. Now, eat! I never thought I'd see the day where it would be this hard to convince you to have breakfast."</p><p>She smiled softly and rolled her eyes, but followed his instructions, using the ends of her chopsticks to help herself to some natto. "Hey, I like you better than food, you should be flattered!"</p><p>"Oh, I am."</p><p>They shared a smile – hers weak and his unconvincing – and a moment of silence before she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and tucked into the meal.</p><p><em>Mamo-chan was right</em>, she told herself, ignoring the squirming of her stomach. <em>They just had to make it through today, get the rainbow crystals, and find their princess. After that, everything would be fine. Better than fine, even. Normal.</em></p><p>Her days as a superhero had brought her the love of her life, and the best friends she could ever ask for – even with all the pulse-pounding terror, she would always be grateful for that. Once the Moon Princess appeared, she didn't think she'd be all that surprised to discover that she maybe even missed being Sailor Moon.</p><p>Just a <em>little </em>bit.</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And, it's done! Rogue, I really hoped you liked it! I tried to squeeze in as many tropes I could that I know you're a fan of, particularly friends-to-lovers mashed up with (inadvertent) fake-not-dating. Also, I'm glad you asked for snark and longing glances, because those are some of my favorite things to write LOL.</p><p>Writing this story was an absolute joy, and I'm so grateful that I got the chance to participate in this exchange. Big huge thanks to PurpleSuperSiren and By-Any-Other-Pen for their hard work in making the exchange happen!</p><p>Thank you always and forever to FloraOne, who betaed this whole story for me while also writing her own fic for the exchange (which ended up being for ME and is amazing)! She really is just the best. </p><p>This is my first completed multichapter (!!!) and so I wanted to take a moment and directly thank those of you who took the time to share your thoughts with me.</p><p>In no particular order, big hugs to:</p><p>jro_jro_jro, LinerRocks, FloraOne, ChibaUsagi, Auxcouleur, Amberg93, LitaKino, crescentcompact, magick33, tiltedvenus, A_Reptile_Dysfunction, Al Evans, jenna, SaphireShimmer, brownsugarheartattack, CottonKey, TropicalRemix, blueeyeddevil06, Sanda07, Lyra Terra, tryntee13, lunatheblackcat, moonwrite, hitomi21, James Birdsong, phillyNZ, mystlady, frenchfan78, selenita, Vereesa Windrunner, LeleCo04, ladyAlyafaelyn, and, of course, AllyUnabridged.</p><p>Thank y'all so much, you made sharing this fic so much more fun &lt;3333</p><p>And thank you so much for reading! Even if you didn't comment, I still hope you enjoyed it!</p><p>If so, please check out some of the other awesome fics and art that were made for this exchange; you can find them all on Tumblr under the tag "Sailor Moon Gift Exchange 2020."</p><p>See you next time!</p><p>Daikon</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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